


Mutualism

by TenSpencerRiedPlease



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Also Anne and Dan will show up and be sweet, BAMF Eddie Brock, BAMF Tony Stark, Canon Divergence - Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Canon Divergence- Venom (Movie), I Don't Even Know, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark Friendship, M/M, Petty Venom Symbiote, Tony Stark Has Issues, because i liked how adorable they were with Eddie in Venom, because they are best friends ok, im a tired chicken I've forgotten how to tag, so like... that's a thing, this mostly follows Venom over Civil War, whatever happens happens ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-08-08 05:40:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16423469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenSpencerRiedPlease/pseuds/TenSpencerRiedPlease
Summary: Tony resists the urge to fidget nervously, an ingrained habit from childhood when Howard drilled proper etiquette into him.His companion has no such reservations about fidgeting and moves some body part of his every few seconds. Obviously people have noticed it, but they’ve long ago accepted it as some part of the Eddie Brock appeal.Or: the one where Eddie formally meets Tony doing some investigative journalism work and they fall in love because I'm a trash bag. Oh, and they pick up a slime creature along the way and they love their petty cat-like alien.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Shit, idk what this is but its a something. I'm tired af so like... I've given up the shits I give so this chapter is half wonky, but the first half is strong!
> 
> Anyways, this is mostly going to follow Venom with my own flavor on it with a dash of Civil War politics before moving back into the wider MCU canon. Be warned, the ending will be sad. Really extra sad if I feel like it, but we'll see how much I desire inflicting pain on my readers by the end of this lol.

Tony resists the urge to fidget nervously, an ingrained habit from childhood when Howard drilled proper etiquette into him. Obi never could break his pacing habit though, not that it matters if he’s not delivering a presentation. In interviews he usually looks poised enough with a relaxed nature that’s forced but doesn’t look it to anyone who doesn’t know him well.

His companion has no such reservations about fidgeting and moves some body part of his every few seconds. Obviously people have noticed it, but they’ve long ago accepted it as some part of the Eddie Brock appeal. “Your story doesn’t add up,” he says and Tony frowns, wondering how the hell _that_ happened.

“Then you weren’t paying attention,” he says, drawing a sharp look from Brock.

“You said you and Bruce weren’t close to anything like Ultron, that your previous AI and the subsequent ones you’ve built are rudimentary compared to what you had in mind. Then… what, Ultron sprang to life?” he asks, squinting suspiciously like Tony wasn’t telling the whole story.

He sighs, “basically, yeah. Only thing we knew about that stone is that it appeared to be powered by a complex network of neurons. Well, the connections were neuron like- obviously they wouldn’t work exactly like human neurons. We ran a test to see if we could use the way the stone was powered to… shape an AI, I guess is the simplest way to put it. Theoretically the neurons- actually in practice it worked the way we intended. Vision is a thing, so we weren’t wrong. But we weren’t at that stage in research yet.” They’d barely even entered the ‘does this check out’ phase of their research. Ideally, and he knows this isn’t how he would have run it, they would have figured out Ultron was possible and started test runs on the ensuing AIs. Tony has several built already so it’d be easy to integrate Ultron into one or two to see how it faired. Then they’d create Ultron his own program.

But, because he knows he was rushing, if it worked it worked- he would have implemented it, _did_ implement it with Vision. Thankfully take two tuned out much better.

Eddie is still frowning like he’s trying to piece things together. “What the hell was this test supposed to _do_?” he asks.

“At its core? Basically we wanted to know if the neurons could be integrated into a previously coded AI as a power source and a way to enhance whatever capabilities we gave the original AI.”

Eddie raises an eyebrow, “so you were basically seeing if the stone would play nice with the other kids on the playground?” he asks, squinting again.

Tony shrugs, “that’s… a elementary way of putting it but yeah.”

“How the hell did Ultron become self aware? How did he come up with that name when you hadn’t even named him yet _or_ coded an AI to integrate into? How was Ultron an already formed mind? Where did his motivation come from? Your explanation doesn’t touch on _any_ of those things,” Eddie points out and yeah no shit, Tony doesn’t have answers for most of those questions.

“I don’t know how Ultron was an already formed mind, I don’t know how he became self-aware but my theory is that he was already aware and we jumpstarted him so to speak with the tests. I assume he got the name when he tore through my lab and my AI- JARVIS. And the motivation… Wanda said he was influenced by me, that he inherited my uh, destructive tendencies. That, and he spent some time on the Internet and decided humans were the worst things to ever happen to this planet. That’s the best I can do for you.”

Eddie frowns, “influenced by you? Why you specifically, why not Banner? Or both of you?” Tony opens his mouth to respond but then closes it, not having a good answer for that. Eddie senses that and pounces. “How would the stone know to be influenced by you, and why would Wanda know that? Especially when the other Avengers have publically stated that they _didn’t_ know.”

Tony misses reporters that were stupid. Christine Everhart is probably the only person he’s dealt with in a long time that spent any time digging, and he gets the feeling that Eddie is going to climb up his ass and make a home in his colon. Usually he can give them a couple answers they want and make them go away but this time, not so much. But then Tony knew that when he contacted Brock anyways- he needs a reporter the public can trust and hopefully being more… forthcoming about the events that led to Ultron might calm the politics in the air a little.

“Wanda has the ability to manipulate minds- before we created Ultron she showed us visions of our worst fears. The one she showed me, according to her, was supposed to unravel me. She thought I’d create my own destruction.” She wasn’t really wrong is what he didn’t say but he doesn’t need to- Eddie knows how to read between the lines.

For a long moment Eddie considers this. “You and Banner created Vision, later, correct?” he asks and Tony shrugs.

“I did, Bruce didn’t.”

He nods, “and the scepter- do you know the history of it?”

“Not in its entirety, obviously. But since it’s been on earth, yes.”

“And the visions- just to clarify this is when Hulk was unleashed on Johannesburg, right? Or is the time line off?”

Tony nods, “that’s right. Your point, since I’m pretty sure you have one?”

Eddie shrugs, sitting back in his seat while he makes notes. “Nothing really, I just think that its odd that the scepter was kept with Loki- a genocidal maniac. Then HYDRA- genocidal maniacs. Then kept with you and Banner after being shown your worst fears- we get Ultron. Its kept with the Avengers for an extended period of time and boom, good android? Wanda might be right about the influence, but I’m not too sure it came from you.”

That’s… an interesting take on that information. “I’m sure you haven’t forgotten my background in weapons,” he says slowly.

“Obviously not, but I also remember you being probably the most naïve person on the planet with extraordinary gifts of destruction. You made the mistake of assuming people had limits and accountability. Funny that we’re right back where you started,” he says.

Tony lets out a long breath of air. “And funnily enough it’s the same problem, isn’t it? Too much power and no accountability.”

“Is that why you chose to step down from the Avengers, Mr. Stark?” he asks.

He nods. “It’s become abundantly clear to me that maybe the course of action I chose after Afghanistan isn’t the best one. I think the Accords reflect the… considerably well-earned anxieties of the public with an organization like the Avengers.”

Eddie nods and stands, half turning before spinning back around. “Oh and just one last thing. How often did you inform the Avengers about your research?” he asks.

Tony frowns, “what do you mean?”

“I mean did you usually keep them in the loop of your research every step of the way. You upgrade their suits and weapons often- when do they hear about your changes?”

“Usually when completed, why?”

Eddie shrugs, “just curious as to why your team expected you to inform them of your decision to run tests with Banner if this wasn’t normal activity.”

Tony snorts, “because this time things went badly. Bruce had wanted to say something, in his defense. I knew the Avengers wouldn’t listen.”

The snatch of information draws Eddie back into his seat. “For what reason?”

Oh, there’s a whole _history_ there but that’s not what Tony is looking to get into. “My um… fear, I suppose, of aliens is well documented. I knew they’d dismiss it; they’ve dismissed it several times for years. The research we were doing was basic, minimal. Didn’t seem relevant to tell them only to have them call me crazy.”

Eddie frowns, “what did aliens have to do with it? That was never part of the equation.”

Tony’s eyebrows draw together until he realizes he didn’t tell Eddie about the vision. “Wanda, her mind trick. My worst fear was New York, but bigger. They won, we lost, I was alive, and Steve asked my why I didn’t do more. I thought… I thought it was real, alright? I’ve been having dreams of something like this for years, I knew of Wanda’s abilities. I thought she tapped into some kind of future event and showed it to me. Turns out I probably should have been more afraid of myself,” he mumbles.

For a brief moment he sees pity on Eddie’s features but its gone fast. He wonders what his face looks like because Eddie had made it clear he has no love lost for him since they met. When he speaks whatever kind of feeling he’s got towards Tony isn’t in his voice. “This seems like something the public should know. Why don’t we know all this, especially considering Lagos?”

Tony sighs, “people didn’t want my motivation, they wanted my head on a stick. You think anyone would have given a shit about the vision? Big deal, I was shown something scary, a whole fucking country was _decimated_ and the world almost ended. Being scared isn’t a good enough reason to make everyone else scared too.”

“Why Steve? Why would he tell you to do better specifically? And why assume you _could_ do better?” Eddie asks, changing the subject.

“I’m the one that’s always failing, aren’t I? Its my actions specifically that seem in constant need of improvement, not the rest of the Avengers. And Steve has no problem pointing that out so I guess Wanda’s influence and my mind gave him a line that was probably too on the nose to be real, not that I considered that at the time.” It was all too good, too well lined up for it to be real but he _panicked_ and well, they all know the rest.

*

The last thing Tony expects is for Eddie to write a positive article about him. Or at least positive for Eddie Brock. Pepper reads it and raises an eyebrow, “wow, he really went for it here. ‘… seems convenient that we blame the most recognizable face in the Avengers that isn’t immediately connected to America and American values. Make no mistake- Tony Stark is not a good man, but this is not a problem of one misguided man with ideas that are bigger than he is. This is a problem of a whole group of people that are just as dangerous as Stark, and less than half of them are willing to admit it.’ Yikes,” Pepper says, reading Eddie’s article. “He’s harsh on you.”

“He’s harsh on everyone. Did you read the section on Wanda? _That_ was harsh.” The section on Bruce was just as bad if not more so given that he spent several paragraphs outlining Bruce’s spotty past with science gone wrong and questioned why people were more willing to blame Tony than him when realistically they’ve both shown themselves dumb enough to create Ultron. Granted he hadn’t phrased it like that, he said something along the lines of their intelligence being ahead of their humanity, which tended to result in monsters. Then went on to outline that, in his opinion, Ultron was less a product of mad scientists and more like the worst series of flukes in history. That’s probably the most positive section of his write up.

Tony isn’t so sure he believes Eddie’s assessment of him and Bruce creating monsters out of intelligence lacking humanity, but he is inclined to think that his intelligence does get ahead of him a lot of the time. Sometimes he knows he’s found something and when he pulls the thread he accidentally unleashes a flood of shit he didn’t anticipate because he went down the rabbit hole too soon. Happens to the best of researchers, but he has less than desirable results more often than the average researcher.

Pepper sighs, “well, I think he was a little unforgiving,” she says.

He hadn’t expected Eddie to be forgiving, frankly he hasn’t earned it. “He told the truth Pep, if that isn’t a picture I want to see, well. That’s no one’s fault but mine.” She makes a small humming noise and pushes the computer away.

“Its not a picture you drew, Tony. Not by yourself anyways, but you seem to be happy to take responsibility for the whole thing. Brock seems to have strong opinions on the Accords though,” she says, changing the subject. Probably because she doesn’t want to go around in circles again like they usually do.

“Everyone has strong opinions on the Accords,” he points out. Rhodey seems to have replaced Tony on the Avengers team and probably not that surprisingly he had sided with them. It’s skyrocketed him into fame bigger than anything he’s experienced before thanks to the average citizen deciding he’s now the face for their rights. It’s not what Rhodey intended and now he’s stuck balancing several on political lines. Not that its anything Rhodey can’t handle- he’s always done pressure well and he’s a good public speaker. He’ll be fine, if stressed.

“I suppose so,” she murmurs. She’s got opinions too, but she hasn’t voiced them. Tony wonders if that’s because of the company, him, or both given that Pepper usually doesn’t make an effort to hide her opinions often. “Your plan doesn’t seem to have worked though, Brock’s conclusions only made people more suspicious of the Avengers.”

Because they weren’t privy to the details of Ultron, yes. So at the moment they might be more suspicious, but once the information has settled he thinks the transparency and accountability might do more to help than hurt. At the very least it might allow for some peace of mind, though Tony supposes its entirely possible that it won’t do anything at all to provide peace. People like stories with obvious villains that can be wrapped in neat little bows and Tony is a convenient face to pin the villain bow to, Eddie hadn’t been wrong about that. “Give them time, Pep. The person they perceive as the problem is out of the way now anyways. They might be more forgiving than the rest of the Avengers.” Ultron was, after all, his fault.

*

Tony doesn’t expect Eddie to go hunt him down at a charity event he doesn’t even want to be at but he finds himself cornered by the reporter anyways. “Are you stalking me?” he asks. “Because I’m pretty sure you already got your story,” he points out.

Eddie laughs, shaking his head a little. “I’m always after a new story. I’ve got two, but one’s just fluff. Care to give me a little information on Steve Rogers?” he asks.

Tony barely resists the urge to rolls his eyes. “You want information on Steve? Fine, I’ll do you one better and send you ten years worth of footage from my security systems.” Saves him the trouble of an interview or ten and it’ll be a lot more informative to Eddie than Tony’s obviously very biased opinion.

“Great. What do you know about the Life Foundation?” he asks and Tony frowns.

“Carlton Drake?” he asks and Eddie nods.

“That’s the guy. I notice you don’t talk much.”

Don’t talk- “I don’t play nice with anyone, why do you think this guy is different?”

Eddie shrugs, “because you’ve publically stated you’d never work with the likes of him. Only other people you’ve done that with have all turned out to be HYDRA, AIM, or some other evil shit. Justin Hammer, Vankov, Maya Hansen though you did also state she was brilliant, Aldrich Killian- none of ‘em ended up good but you know that. They all came for your head.”

Yeah okay, true. And before Killian ruined Maya’s research it was viable, potentially life-altering even. It’s disappointing that her brilliance has gone down the drain. “Look Eddie, Carlton Drake is crazier than a bag of cats alright, steer clear for your own damn good.”

He knows immediately that his warning isn’t going to yield results. “What makes you think that?” he asks.

A gut feeling, mostly, but he knows enough about Drake’s methods that he doesn’t approve. “Look, that shit I pulled with Ultron, testing things before they’re ready- that’s his entire method. It’s a miracle he hasn’t managed to screw something up badly enough to end up like Bruce _or_ me. Though I doubt he tests things on _himself_ ,” he says, lip curling a little. Shame, really, because the guy is stunning. That’s pretty much where his appeal ends though.

“And you know that how?” Eddie asks and Tony knows what he’s getting at.

“We’ve never worked together, not meaningfully anyways. But we’ve come in contact enough for me to take an educated guess as to how he runs things. He’s not really subtle in his hinting.” He’s got that Devil-may-care attitude Tony has combined with Justin Hammer’s ethics and frankly he doesn’t think the results are something Eddie will write something positive on.

Eddie nods, “he’s approached you several times, you’ve always turned him down.”

Tony already knows this on account of living it. “Your point?” he asks, because Eddie has one.

He shrugs, “I’ve maybe made the mistake of falling into the trap everyone else has in assuming you only do anything you do for the glory. But if that were true Drake is a great partner and you’ve never liked the guy. Suggests maybe you _do_ have ethics that exist outside your own mind,” he says, squinting like Tony’s moral code will fall out of his forehead if he stares long enough.

“Everyone has a moral code that only exists in their own head- we all have a different definition of ‘too far’ and ‘not far enough’. But no, I don’t do anything for the glory of it- if its research I’m looking to _learn_ not get press. Scientific studies rarely look good when made for public consumption, you know that. And the hero thing, well, I did what I thought the public needed and we know how that ended up.” It seems every attempt he’s made at helping people has gone disastrously wrong. Granted the weapons thing should have been obvious, but at least everything after that was a true attempt even if it has all gone terribly awry. Stepping back, he thinks, will be a useful step to orient himself.

“And Drake?” Eddie asks.

Good question. “I… don’t really know the guy well enough to give an overly accurate judge of character, but he always struck me less as the type looking for glory and more the type to use that glory to justify his twisted methods.”

Eddie raises an eyebrow, “in depth judgment for someone who doesn’t think he’s an accurate judge of character.”

“Look, hang around with a bunch of ego driven jackasses as much as I do and you learn to pick out the types. I could be totally off the mark, but know enough to make an educated guess.” He doesn’t think he’s off, per se, because Carlton Drake reminds him of several people he’d rather forget, but it is entirely possible he’s wrong. Hell, its entirely possible that Eddie is wrong too and that Carlton Drake just has an easy to misinterpret personality and it turns out he’s a sunflower of hope or some shit. That seems unlikely though.

“Guess you’d know,” Eddie murmurs but the statement feels ambiguous.

*

Rhodey looks irritated, “this reporter is annoying,” he says and Tony laughs.

“Relax, platypus. He’s not totally wrong.” Bit of an ass sure, but so is Tony and Rhodey finds it endearing when Tony does it. Pepper too, at least until he’s a dick to them, then they aren’t impressed and tell him to stop that.

“He’s still a dick head- he figured out that _three_ people were technically responsible for Ultron and he still ate your ass over it,” Rhodey says, apparently also upset about that article.

Tony sighs, “probably because I was still one of the three people who made the AI, Rhodey. Plus I think it makes his work credible- he went after everyone in that article. Thorough work,” he murmurs.

“Blatantly biased,” Rhodey adds.

“Also an opinion piece- if you wanted the objective one it’s a sanitized look at the facts as I told him plus notes where he corroborated my story. Or decided my details didn’t match up.” That was mostly in regards to Wanda’s sketchy past and to be fair Tony doesn’t know a lot about that. It makes sense that some details would be off.

Rhodey lets out a huff of air, “would you let me defend you, man? So alright- reporter has got a bug up his ass with you, what are you going to do about it? Do you need me to do something about it?” he asks and Tony laughs.

“Jesus Rhodey, calm down, no. I kind of like him actually, reminds me of Christine,” he says and Rhodey makes a face.

“Don’t fuck this one. Seriously though, you gave him how much footage of the Avengers doing whatever? That seems like a bad idea.” It would be if there was anything significant in there but ninety percent of it is comprised of them all sleeping, Tony in the lab, them in the gym, and them all yelling at Clint not to put the milk back in the fridge empty. The only significant things are after any kind of major event and that consists of them all eating in silence, patching each other up, sleeping, and someone telling someone else they can’t adopt an animal that later goes to a loving home.

There are arguments in there sure, all the Ultron footage, and a few other things but most of it is boring shit. “I mean, if we do something freaky in our sleep maybe. Might be useful if he finds something,” he says, snickering despite Rhodey’s dirty look. “Oh shush- maybe seeing that we’re, for the most part, pretty normal people all things considered will help you out in trying to calm the public down.”

Rhodey shakes his head, “shit, with the way everyone is worked up we’re going to need another damn alien invasion to calm them down,” he says.

Yeah, Tony hopes the fuck _not_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween, y'all! I was going to update tomorrow night but my building's power will be out for repairs on electrical shit so like guess I'll update now lol.
> 
> Honestly this whole fic could be renamed Reasons Rhodey Went Grey Before His Time: Tony Stark.

Tony is _trying_ to enjoy his dinner when some poor harassed looking waiter walks up to him looking regretful. “Um, Mr. Stark there’s a very… insistent person here to see you.” He could say no, but he gets the impression that the staff has already tried to keep whomever out and he comes here often- its not a fan, they’ve dealt with those. Including some weird guy named Gary who apparently has some of Tony’s hair clippings and _that_ is disturbing. So he supposes whoever this is must be more than insistent. He only follows the poor waiter because the staff doesn’t really deserve to be harassed because of him.

Of course when he finds Eddie Brock standing at the door covered in sweat looking more like a homeless man than a normal human being, well. “What the fuck, Eddie,” he says with some kind of tone that results in the staff giving him a strange look.

“See, _told_ you we knew each other,” Eddie says smugly and oh. Yeah, looking between them he can see why the staff was confused too.

“Why are you here? And how did you find me?” Though he supposes if fans manage on a regular basis it probably wouldn’t be too hard for Eddie, who confirms it when he replies.

“I’m an investigative journalist- its what I do. So uh, I messed with Carlton Drake. Any advice?” he asks. Tony looks at the hovering staff, probably concerned about everyone else in the building thanks to Eddie looking like a fucking crazy person, and he sighs before gently pushing Eddie out the door and onto the street. Thankfully he cooperates.

“Eddie, what the _fuck_?” he asks again, feeling like a broken record. It occurs to him that this is probably what dealing with himself feels like and he decides he doesn’t like it. Rhodey and Pepper are gods among men, truly.

Eddie sighs, running his fingers over his hair. It sticks up in several directions due to being wet, which, gross. “Well, no one _else_ was doing anything and I think I found something but he kind of cut things short when I asked stuff he didn’t want to answer and now my ex lost her job, I lost mine, and also I lost my apartment? Not sure how he managed that but you know. Money talks so.”

Well, he’s not wrong. Tony has found he can buy most anything except for things he needs. He sighs, “I’ve got some space, obviously, you can always take Steve’s floor in the Tower, it’s probably cleaner than Clint’s ever was. Guy was a fucking pig honestly,” he mumbles.

The response, for some reason, confuses Eddie. “You’d… give me a place to live?” he asks, frowning.

Tony doesn’t know how he’s supposed to react here. “I um… homing the homeless seemed like the easiest fix to your current problems?” Its not like Tony has a huge use for an investigative journalist, he doesn’t know anything about Eddie’s ex, and he can’t fix Drake per se. Not without him causing some kind of catastrophic even Hammer style or having concrete evidence a court can evaluate.

Something on Eddie’s features shifts. “That’s so sweet, why don’t you house homeless people?” he asks.

He can’t help but laugh- seems pretty characteristic of Eddie. “In my experience fans will do anything, and I _do_ mean anything, to get close to you. I run a few homeless shelters, but sticking them in my actual house seems like a recipe for fan made disaster.” Gary with the hair clippings would show up on the Tower steps begging for cash and Tony has never liked seeing people laid that low by anything so then he’d end up housing homeless Gary and he’d like… write Tony a love letter in his blood or some crazy shit.

“Hmm,” Eddie murmurs. “Yeah, my ex has graciously taken me in so that’s not what I’m here about. Can you hack Carlton Drake?” he asks.

Tony rolls his eyes, “I can hack almost anyone,” he says. Probably anyone, but its always good to account for a small margin of failure. “But I’m going to need a real reason that’s not just your gut feeling.”

Eddie looks annoyed by this, fidgeting in a way that would make Tony wonder if he were a drug addict if he didn’t know better. Fidgeting really is the only sign he has of drug abuse and Tony is too familiar with how that works. “He’s running human trials on… I don’t know, _something_ ,” he says.

“Eddie, the guy runs a pharmaceutical company- obviously he’s running human trials on something, probably a lot of somethings. That’s now drug testing _works_.”

He shakes his head, “no, I read the files- something about a symbiote- I didn’t get a lot of time but I don’t think this is normal drug stuff.”

Symbiote? “Anything else seem suspicious because you’re kind of running on fumes,” he says. He doesn’t actually think that, but he knows if Eddie knows more he’ll spit it out under pressure. If not, well, he can always hack Drake without Eddie knowing and find whatever this symbiote thing is. He’s got a hunch that Eddie is onto something too though he hopes he’s wrong for the public’s sake. And if this ends up being the name of a depression medication he’s going to kill Eddie.

“Not really, just that he jumped from a rabbit to homeless people. Specifically that group,” he says and yeah okay, that’s weird. Probably illegal kind of weird, not really his usual brand of weird- which tends to be aliens or super humans, whoever tries to shit on America first this week- but strange enough to look into.

He sighs, “I better pull up something useful,” he says.

Eddie jumps into the air, obviously excited. “ _Ha_ , take that Drake!” Tony shakes his head and rolls his eyes.

*

It’s not that hacking Carlton Drake is difficult, it’s that Eddie is literally breathing down his neck and its annoying Tony. “Can you _not_?” he asks.

Predictably, Eddie doesn’t move. “Get a move on would you,” he says, poking Tony like that’ll make him go faster.

He rolls his eyes. “This stuff takes time you know,” he mumbles.

“For you? Probably not. Hurry up,” Eddie tells him.

Yeah, okay. It does take a while but that’s due to Tony covering his tracks well. Maybe Eddie doesn’t care if Carlton Drake is on his ass but Tony would like to avoid it, thanks. The Life Foundation, something Tony has never really cared for due mostly to the secrecy around Drake’s projects, has several active projects, but he finds the most recently accessed project to look into. The rocket design immediately makes him roll his eyes, which Eddie notices and inquires about. “Its bad engineering,” he says and then Eddie rolls his eyes.

“Jesus Christ, he might be using homeless people in some kind of trial for something and you’re offended by rocket designs?” he asks.

“The ambiguity of that statement is why I’m offended by rocket designs. You don’t have proof of that beyond a few sentences of some papers you got into. I have definitive proof that Drake has no idea how to hire engineers and clearly pays no attention to my advancements to the field,” he mumbles. Honestly its offensive to look at and Tony doesn’t like it. But the notes that are attached to it do get his attention.

Drake, looking for other inhabitable planets- an idea Tony does _not_ approve of- found _life_ on a comet. “Why haven’t we heard about this,” he murmurs. Aliens, they know about them obviously, but previous to showing up in New York to kill them all there was zero proof aside from people’s bullshit stories. Finding life would still be a huge deal for humanity and Drake found the comet- Tony looks at the dates- almost a year ago and said nothing. Why?

“Because he’s a skeezy bastard, get to the homeless people,” Eddie tells him.

Tony gives him a dirty look. For an investigative journalist he’s bad at gathering information. Okay, he has first hand proof that’s not true, but going through the information slowly has its merits. Namely having enough information to properly act when or if they find homeless people as experiments. Last month there was a failure of that terribly built rocket that Tony doesn’t think is an accident, not from the way it went down but Drake didn’t even fucking investigate. The Life Foundation went and picked up ambiguously named samples, noted one missing, presumed dead, and brought them back to the lab.

Its not until he gets to the last of the files that he finds anything useful about homeless people. “I’m assuming you know how much money solving homelessness in America would cost- do I have enough for that?” He suspects he does, but Eddie’s irritated look confirms it.

“Yeah, and yet you selfishly horde it all to yourself,” he says.

Tony nods. “Great, we’re going to solve homelessness in America. Drake’s tests, which are _scanty_ at best, are only just starting human trials and the notes are so bad I don’t even know what the hell he’s testing except that his lead scientist doesn’t think it’s a good idea. She made note of it. Anyways, whatever you read you got that memo at the same time everyone else did. But you can’t experiment on homeless people with no homeless people. Forces Drake to be more out in the open while we make a case.”

*

Rhodey is trying to argue with, of all people _Sam_ , when he reads the headline and frowns. ‘Tony Stark Solving Homelessness’ isn’t what he expected to read over morning negotiations but everyone else in the room notices when he does probably because he stops talking mid sentence about how the UN isn’t HYDRA. As if he wouldn’t have done his damn research, most of it illegal given that he hacked into a lot of top security databases. But no, the Avengers, including Sam, insist on arguing with him. He’d at least give Steve credit where it was due, his questions about the application of the law were at least useful, but they work like an international police force. If he wanted answers to his questions he should look at how the damn police are treated.

Its not that Rhodey doesn’t have a million and one problems with any and all policing and military forces- he’s worked too long with the military specifically not to. But he knows damn well police forces with no oversight and consequences for their actions are goddamn nightmare fuel. But Tony’s apparently solving homelessness without telling Rhodey about it is a sufficient enough distraction for him to call a small time out for this.

Tony picks up on the second ring, “platypus, I thought you were in negotiations,” he says casually. Way _too_ casually Rhodey knows and that means he’s gotten himself into trouble and Rhodey is probably going to have to go save his dumb white boy. Or get Pepper to do it, she’s actually more efficient at it than he is.

“Tones, what the hell did you do?” he asks and Tony makes an offended noise as if he hasn’t probably done something wrong. “Tony?” Rhodey asks again, sounding far too much like his mother for his liking.

Tony sighs, “nothing technically, but remember that Carlton Drake guy? Super sketchy, maybe using homeless people in some kind of human trials for something. His notes are fucking horrible, I’m offended at the bad science alone but you know. Also the homeless population.”

Holy fucking hell Rhodey is going to have to fly his ass back to America because Drake is pretty sketchy, but in the way Rhodey deems dangerous. There’s Hammer sketchy- where it’s mostly talk no action, there’s Vankov sketchy- super smart, but ultimately unhinged. And then there’s the guys like Carlton Drake, who are competent, intelligent, and know exactly what they’re doing. They’re the worst kind of people to deal with because they make proving them guilty hard, or chasing them down if they go super villain especially annoying. What they make is an even match and it’s a pain in the ass to fight someone as good as you.

“What got Drake on to your radar?” he asks, exasperated. Its not that Tony has never noticed him before, they’ve run into each other a few times and Tony always bristled. But there has to have been some kind of catalyst that led him to ending homelessness as a solution to Drake’s potential human testing. Go big or go home, Rhodey supposes, and that’s always been Tony’s MO for better or worse.

“Remember that reporter-” he starts and Rhodey cuts him off.

“No, enough with the reporter. Drop him like a hot potato, Tony, it will only end badly.” It did with Christine, and with everyone else but Pepper and frankly Rhodey would prefer they get back together. Pepper was good with him, and he needs someone who can ground him and she needs someone who isn’t intimidated by her success. They were a good match and Pepper isn’t an annoying reporter with nefarious intentions that Rhodey doesn’t know.

Tony sighs, “something hinky is going on, and even if I’m wrong- which I doubt- solving homelessness is a noble cause.”

Yeah, he doesn’t disagree but also. He lets out a long, drawn out sigh. “Tony. Drop the reporter, hand whatever evidence you have against Drake to people who are better equipped to deal with it, and… well there’s actually no downside to the homelessness thing so like keep doing that, that’s actually a good thing. But still, stop the rest.”

The long, drawn out silence tells Rhodey Tony will not stop with his investigation. “Technically,” Tony says eventually, “Eddie is doing most of the investigating, I’m just the tech guy.”

Tony is going to make him die young.

*

Eddie looks up at the massive structure and then over to Tony. “The Avengers Compound?” he asks and Tony shrugs.

“No one else is using it at the moment,” he points out. After Ultron, well, there was a heavy split between the Avengers and Tony never bothered to fix it. No one else did either and at first that hurt but he’s made peace with it since then. ‘Course after Lagos it probably would have been useful to have a place to lie low but Tony never reached out and no one asked so for now the various structures they’ve got around are going unused. The space is huge, meant for super hero training, but certainly large enough to house a bunch of homeless people temporarily while Tony sorts through them all.

“This place is a lot bigger than I thought I’d be,” Eddie murmurs.

“It’s meant for training. We’ve all got special skills that would be dangerous to the general public if they were exposed to them. Hence the massive property.” Tony used to test his suits here though he’s recently started making use of the desert in Arizona for that.

Eddie snorts, “yeah, pretty sure the people of Lagos know that,” he mumbles.

Its harsh, Wanda is probably still pretty green in her abilities given that he doubts HYDRA would have trained her all that well. Their goal was to make sure her powers worked, not to make sure people weren’t harmed by them. Steve should have trained her better than that though, or at least accepted more responsibility over her mistake than ‘sometimes people die’. He’s not wrong, but _fuck_ is that callous.

It speaks, a little voice that sounds suspiciously like Rhodey in the back of his mind, like a solider talking about war. But they aren’t at war, Steve specifically hasn’t been at war for some time, and telling the public ‘people die’ is not going to cut it no matter how true it is. It’s cold, heartless, and dehumanizing to the victims at best. Eleven people in Lagos didn’t just die randomly; they died because Steve, Nat, Sam, and Wanda showing up sent HYDRA into a high-speed tailspin across the city that cumulated in people dying needlessly.

They should have planned better, did more work to protect the public, and if someone died still than they should have fucking apologized. The families would never accept it, Tony wouldn’t expect them to, but it might sooth the public’s nerves to hear that it was an accident and that they were working on measures to prevent that kind of thing from happening again.

“Savokia would probably be a better example of that,” Tony murmurs but Eddie shakes his head.

“Look, no doubt what you did was stupid, arrogant, and short sighted but Ultron was the biggest fluke in human history. I know SHIELD, or maybe HYDRA- who knows anymore, ran dozens of tests on the Tesseract. HYDRA ran dozens of tests on the mind stone, Maximoff of the product of those tests. There was no reason for anyone to conclude that running a test on potential neuron like connections would end in a genocidal AI. But a team of super people chasing down a group of people with no regard for human life with no extra precautions for the public’s safety? That’s an immediate recipe for disaster,” Eddie says.

It’s probably the most polite thing Eddie has ever said to him but Tony shakes his head. “I should have taken my own precautions,” he says. No sense in excusing his actions no matter how far fetched the results would have been had they even considered them at the time.

Eddie snorts, “damn right you should have, but I still doubt those precautions would have involved preventing a genocidal AI from happening given how absurd a result that’d be when you had no interface for the stone to attach to. Seems like Ultron was already there and you jumpstarted him, not that you created him accidentally or on purpose and then unleashed him. Your actions were stupid and reckless sure, but they weren’t intentionally negligent. And your response was to accept responsibility at least publically.”

Tony sighs, “Eddie, I know you’re a bit a harsh guy when it comes to judging people in power, but I doubt Steve and Wanda _intended_ to hurt anyone.” Steve, god-awful response to his actions and Wanda’s or not, isn’t really that kind of guy.

The look on Eddie’s face tells him that he disagrees with that assessment. “Fine, you tell me Stark. What other intentions could you possibly have chasing a guy with nothing to lose and no regard for human life into a crowded farmer’s market? Does that not seem _intentionally_ disastrous?” he asks.

It doesn’t, but not for reasons Eddie would ever accept. Steve just wanted Bucky back, and he supposes Eddie would be right to not think that’s a good enough answer. But he throws it out there anyways, curious about Eddie’s response.

He snorts, “yeah, and now eleven families all want their dead relatives back. Being upset at loss is no fucking reason to go make sure other people feel the same way you do.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a short boi, but its a somethin!

When Tony goes into the kitchen to make his morning coffee FRIDAY doesn’t even get time to warn him before Eddie shoves a newspaper into his face. He jumps, grabbing it and pulling it out from under his nose. “Dude,” he says, “how the hell did you even get _in_ here?”

“I let him in,” FRIDAY faithfully supplies and Tony sighs.

“FRI, why would you do that?” he asks the AI.

“Why wouldn’t it?” Eddie asks back.

“You appear to be working with him in similar ways that you work with Colonel Rhodes,” the AI says and, well, Tony can’t really blame her. He _did_ design her to function in a way that predicts the user’s needs before the user themselves and she’s not wrong. He works with Rhodey in similar capacities, meaning that by AI logic- which is more computer than not for now- Eddie would have been safe.

“Next time wake me up and ask,” he tells the AI. “And you, why are you-“ his words cut out as he finally looks at the headline on the paper and swears. The UN was bombed at the Accords signing and, of all people, the king of Wakanda is dead. _Shit_. It gets worse when he reads the article and finds out it was _Bucky_ and, as per usual, Steve had a ready defense for him. That’s absolutely _not_ what the public would want to hear and Steve didn’t even seem to consider the fact that maybe Bucky _did_ do it considering there’s fucking security footage of him at the scene. “God damn it,” he mumbles.

Eddie nods, “yeah, exactly. Seems kind of fishy though, don’t you think?” he asks, squinting at the paper.

Tony frowns, “how so?” Seems pretty clear cut though there’s always the possibility that that was manufactured. He probably knows that better than most.

Eddie shrugs, “I don’t know, call it journalist instincts but this seems too… convenient, you know? Barnes has been off the grid for what, two years? Three? And now all of the sudden he shows up at probably one of the most symbolic events in recent history and just _happens_ to kill the king of an isolationist nation with no _possible_ motivation in an act that seemingly goes against the Avengers? No, this is all too much put together in way to convenient a way when we already know Barnes will break protocol for Rogers and this all flies in the face of that. Not saying it wasn’t him, but what if it wasn’t _him_ , you know?”

What if he’s back under HYDRA control, Eddie means. “I doubt HYDRA would have found him before we did. We were pretty thorough,” he says.

Eddie frowns, “what? HYDRA? No, I mean Wanda. We already know she had it out for the Avengers, Barton was an idiot and gave her the perfect chance to infiltrate. It happens to be _her_ actions that are the straw that breaks the camel’s back so-to-speak with the public, and now Rogers’ war buddy is back and seemingly out for his blood when we know that’s not normal behavior even when brainwashed? She’s the only one stronger than HYDRA’s conditioning, just saying this is all singin to the same tune.”

And, Tony thinks, it all lines up in too convenient a way like Barnes. Eddie is right regardless, something is off here. “I’ll look into it, see if any of the footage was doctored, anything like that. I’ll send what I find to Rhodey.” Rhodey, who is undoubtedly cleaning up after Steve because that is what he does best. Tony feels bad for being the cause of that, but it might be convenient now. He’s trying; apparently unbeknownst to Steve, to get the public to trust the Avengers again and if Tony can find information supporting or denying Barnes’ involvement in this it might help everyone calm the hell down.

Except, he thinks, if Barnes really is guilty and then he’s going to have to deal with whatever the fallout is with Steve. He makes a note to tell Rhodey to watch for Steve to go rogue because that’s a very real possibility.

*

Carlton Drake looks pleased that Tony is in his lab and frankly Tony is skeeved by his single-minded focus. If he wasn’t pretty sure the guy was a skeeze ball that single-minded focus, creepy or no, probably would have been useful. Shitty tech or not Carlton Drake is a brilliant guy and he’s made impressive pharmacology developments. Of course Tony doesn’t want to consider _how_ now that he’s got evidence, however threadbare, that he’s experimenting on homeless people.

“Everything is state of the art,” he says and Tony, unable to help it, lets out a small snort.

“Not even _remotely_ ,” he mumbles to himself. Eddie, who’s watching everything through his glasses back in the Tower, is probably calling him a bunch of unpleasant names right now but he can’t help it okay. Bad engineering makes him want to kill himself. And the people who did that to the poor, innocent machines who simply wanted life only to be handed a deformed and ultimately unfulfilling existence.

“You think you can do better?” Drake asks, eyebrow raised and pleasant smile still fixed in place but his hackles are up, Tony can tell. He’s known enough people like him to know when they’re offended.

He half laughs, “I do better all the time. _That_ though, that’s compelling,” he says, moving towards a lab with some kind of something in it. Whatever it is it looks like a black kind of liquid moving around in a container on its own accord.

Drake smiles wider, “oh, that’s the crown jewel of my collection at the moment. Collected off a comet and I know you and aliens don’t have a… _good_ relationship but I think these may be the future of the human race. Lets be real here, this planet gets attacked a lot and most of that is from humans. We should find a new one, kick back, _relax_. These need a carbon life form host to survive- with these we can survive on another planet,” he says.

Tony squints, “if they need a carbon host to survive how the hell were they living on a comet?” he asks.

The question seems to throw Drake off and that’s what you get when you rely of half cocked shitty science that’s totally incomplete. “Well, perhaps you will come to a different conclusion,” he says and the door to the lab opens.

Against his better judgment he goes in to get a closer look for Eddie’s sake at least. And, although he will never admit this out loud, he’s curious. When the door closes behind him he remembers that old saying about curiosity killing the cat maybe a little late. Drake laughs, “aren’t you a genius? You just walked into the most obvious trap known to man, and chances are you and that symbiote won’t bond. Then you’ll be dead, no one will be saving the homeless, and Eddie Brock is out of resources and idiot superheroes who aren’t that smart after all.”

He looks pleased with himself but Tony is fucking annoyed. _This_ is how he’s going to die? Aliens, he expected that, jackass megalomaniacs who villain speech at him after he did, in fact, walk into a very obvious trap? That’s new. “Pretty sure Pepper won’t be impressed and she’s actually got a better success rate with greedy asshole villains than I do. And she’s made of tougher stuff than me too.” Plus she’s got a suit, but no one knows that. She didn’t want it, actively refused to use it for years even though Tony frequently updated it, but after Ultron she changed her mind. She’s good with the tech considering that she’s not, like Rhodey, a pilot, or, like Tony, a tech genius. But she is damn stubborn and a quick learner and she’s not to keen on people she likes being hurt or killed.

Drake shrugs, “then I’ll kill her too,” he says casually. Poor bastard, Tony thinks, doesn’t even know he’s being recorded.

“Yeah,” Tony mumbles, “good luck with that.”

“Luck to you too,” Drake says and the container behind him opens. Tony, more out of instinct than anything, backs up because hell _no_. The black goo- Tony does _not_ like this alien already, leaks out with obvious intent towards Tony. If not for his probable death he’d be curious about that, especially when it follows his movements.

“How long have your subjects lasted?” Tony asks, ignoring the panicked edge to his voice.

“A few moments, usually,” Drake tells him readily. Well, if Tony is going to die he’s going to make his last moments count.

“And how many subjects did you test this theory on? I want to know my chances here,” he says, climbing onto a table. Doesn’t help, the goo follows. Fuck _sakes_.

“Twenty five or so until you managed to whisk the homeless away. Shame, that. More of a shame that they all died. You’ve been so exceptional in life, too bad you’re death will be the same as the lowest of the low,” Drake laments as Tony jumps from the table.

“You’re a real _jackass_ ,” Tony tells him as the goo seems to get tired chasing him around and moves at a speed that’s way to rapid for him to outrun even if he wanted to and had the space. He watches in shock as it seems to _melt_ into him, frowning as it disappears under his skin. Drake is pressed to the glass, obviously interested in what happens next while Tony tries to orient himself. He feels dizzy, confused, and his vision is starting to swim. This is never the way he intended to die and frankly he’s a little mad about it.

 _Dramatic. We aren’t going to die. You make a nice ride_.

He jumps, trying to locate the source of the voice.

_Inside. Hungry._

“Yeah, not keen on what you want to eat for breakfast,” he mumbles more to himself than the alien who can apparently _speak to him in his mind_.

“No,” Drake whispers, pressed to the glass. “No, of all people…”

Yeah, as Drake pointed out Tony really has always been exceptional and he really wishes he wasn’t right now. He’d rather be dead than whatever the fuck this is.

_Chitauri. No one even likes them._

Tony frowns, wondering how the fuck the alien knew that.

 _I know everything you know_.

Great. Now he’s leaked world security shit to an alien because he’s an idiot and fell for an obvious trap set by Carlton Drake. Just fucking _peachy_. And Eddie is watching everything.

“Dora,” Drake says into his phone, “get down here now. We have a survivor.”

 _Escape. You know how, I can feel it_.

Fucking right he knows how to escape but he doubts he’s going to escape easy. Also he’d be unleashing an alien onto the world.

_Better than staying here. I’ll protect you. Lets go._

The alien will protect him, sure, because that’s ever happened in the past.

 _Thor_.

He does not like this alien in his head and Thor barely even counts. He ignores the stupid alien and looks around, noting the simple mechanics of the lab door. State of the art his _ass_. A quick glance around the room gives him a plan but when he goes to move his body, against his own will, yanks him back.

_No fire!_

Tony frowns, “what?”

_No fire!_

Great, okay, no bomb then. He reconsiders his options and finds a new plan just as someone else enters the room. She’s young, frightened looking, and shocked to see Tony alive. “Care to let me out?” he asks, figuring he’d at least test it.

Beside her Drake glares, obviously not wanting her to do so but the option must be real enough if he’s acting like it’s a real possibility. She shakes her head slowly, looking away. Tony shrugs, “option two, then,” he says, gabbing the fire extinguisher off the wall.

*

Rhodey just wants some damn peace; maybe a short vacation in the sun where he can relax a little but his damn best friend of nearly thirty years has always made that impossible. Usually its because he ropes Rhodey into some project, or needs saving, or needs Rhodey to accept an award for him, or leaves his place in the Avengers for him.

But nothing on God’s green earth could have prepared Rhodey for watching a news report of Tony turning into an honest to god ugly ass black _slime_ monster thing on national television as be busts his way out of Carlton Drake’s lab. He sighs, “look Ross, I’m going to have to call you back. Tony just turned into a monster and I got to go deal with that.”

On the other end Ross makes a shocked noise. “He _what_?”

Rhodey rolls his eyes, “you heard me. He hulked out into some gross black slime thing and I gotta go save his ass. Bros before negotiations with assholes,” he says, hanging up the phone.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I lost the original last third of this chapter, but I like this one better anyways so like... cool I guess lol. Stupid computer, freezing when I need it to not do that.

Rhodey does not look convinced whatsoever and Eddie looks pissed. “I’m telling you the alien is in _him_ now,” Tony says, gesturing to Eddie. “Said he was a better ride which, _rude_.” Rhodey gives him a confused look for a moment before pulling his phone out of his pocket and rolling his eyes, sending the call to voicemail before sticking it back in his pocket. Tony raises an eyebrow at him, asking silently what that was.

“Ross. Guy is a persistent jackass,” he says, shaking his head.

“Can you let me out of here?” Eddie asks, interrupting them.

Rhodey looks between Tony and Eddie, “no one is going anywhere until we find the alien. If its still here since it has body snatching abilities,” he says.

An idea strikes Tony, “it doesn’t like fire!”

“No one _likes_ fire, Tony. That’s a bad test,” Rhodey says.

Yeah, they’ll see about _that_. He walks across the lab, picking up a lighter and bringing it back over to Rhodey. He lights it and holds his hand over it close enough for the flame to hurt a little, but not enough to cause damage. “See? I’m fine,” he says

Rhodey rolls his eyes, “am I seriously supposed to buy that?” he asks.

Ok, _rude_. Tony turns to Eddie, who has already backed up a little but something tells him Rhodey isn’t going to find that suspicious so he carefully releases the door of the room he’s managed to trap Eddie in and slips into the room. Eddie backs up further and Tony raises an eyebrow at Rhodey, who looks as convinced by this as Tony predicted. But when he lights the flame and holds it out to Eddie black goo shoots from his chest, smacking into Tony and he goes flying into a wall. It takes a long few moments of listening to Eddie’s panicked mumblings for Tony to recover enough to pick his ass up and give Rhodey an ‘I told you so’ look but he manages.

“Oh _hell_ no,” Rhodey says, giving Eddie a suspicious look.

*

Eddie taps on the glass of the room he’s in, “are you going to keep me in here forever or what?” he asks.

 Rhodey looks at him like he’s nuts, “probably. You’re being possessed by a fucking alien, no way am I letting you out of there. Tony, he can’t get out of there, right?” he asks.

Tony gives the space a once over and shrugs, “I mean, probably not. Don’t look at me like that Rhodey- the room is meant to contain the Hulk and I had Thor test it so yeah its solid, but I don’t know how that alien works and I think it can probably squeeze through small cracks.”

“Then fill the damn cracks, Tony!” Rhodey tells him. He makes an annoyed face as his phone goes off for what feels like the millionth time. “Hold on, I have to get this otherwise he’s going to keep harassing me and I have better things to do than have Ross on my ass.” He steps away for a moment and Eddie watches him go.

“Look, this uh… alien thing. Its hungry and I don’t know what it eats,” he says.

Neither does Tony and he’s not keen to find out. “Well tell it to hold on, we’ve got the US military up our asses when they should be up Carlton Drake’s,” Tony tells him.

Eddie doesn’t look pleased about this but he can fucking deal with it, Tony needs to figure out what to do with him before Ross shows up and sticks an ownership label on Eddie’s head. Because he’d actually do that and, unlike the Avengers, no one will give a shit about some random journalist relatively famed or not. He tunes into Rhodey’s conversation, curious about what he’s saying given that Tony knows Rhodey isn’t exactly Ross’ biggest fan and frowns when he hears what Rhodey is saying. “-Called Danvers so calm the hell down… Because I’m not an idiot, Ross, this isn’t my first rodeo… Oh and you’re lacking a bias? Get the hell out of my face with that… Doesn’t matter because I called Danvers and she has more authority.”

Tony tunes back out because he has no clue who Danvers is but he’s guessing that its someone Rhodey trusts. “Can I at least get some human food? Because I need to eat too,” Eddie points out. Shit, right.

“Give me a minute,” Tony says, leaving the lab to go find something edible. Rhodey finds him in the kitchen an hour later and frowns at him.

“Tater tots?” he asks and Tony shrugs.

“That’s all I know how to make. Who’s Danvers?”

Rhodey gives the plate in Tony’s hand a disappointed look but you know what, he can’t help that he’s never learned how to cook. Okay actually he’s tried, and there was that time when Rhodey’s mom had been horrified to discover he had no life skills and _she_ tried but Tony was never meant to be a cook. So now all he knows how to make is stuff you throw on a baking sheet and stick in the oven. Anything more complicated than that and stuff starts blowing up.

“Carol Danvers,” Rhodey says like that name should mean something to him. Rhodey waits, clearly expecting a reaction and when he doesn’t get one he sighs. “You disappoint me, man. All you need to know is that she’s got more authority than Ross. I mean the promotion was recent but that’s not what I care about, I just don’t like Ross. And Danvers has more experience with aliens.”

She does? Strange that he hasn’t heard of her then, but he suspects he’s looking in the wrong places. “Great. So Ross is called off then?” he asks and Rhodey snorts.

“Hell no we have a day to figure out how to deal with the Eddie thing before he’s basically calling a kill order on the guy.”

Tony rubs his temples, “who hired this guy? His solution is always to shoot shit- what the _hell_?”

Rhodey snorts, “you aren’t the one doing negotiations with the guy. The damn UN is shooting down half his amendments let alone me.”

Yeah, he doesn’t envy Rhodey there. “So we have a day. When’s Danvers showing up?” he asks.

“Within the hour so you best go get something useful out of Eddie before she gets here so we can deal with it.” Tony sighs. Well okay.

He makes his way back to the lab and gives Eddie the food and he looks almost as disappointed as Rhodey. “What? Did you think I was a fucking chef?” he asks and Eddie rolls his eyes.

“No, but I figured you had a few.”

Okay valid point. “They get weekends off, I’m not a monster. Speaking of ask that alien some questions, we have less than twenty four hours until you’re dead,” Tony tells him.

Eddie looks understandably alarmed by this so Tony gives him the rundown. “Who keeps this Ross guy around? Sounds like a loose canon.”

“He is but right now he’s aimed at us so you can write you lengthy expose of Ross’ shitty military decisions- of which I’m sure you’ll find plenty- _after_ we figure this alien out.” Eddie sighs and eats a tater tot, wrinkling his nose and honestly that’s just rude. Tony did his best, okay.

“How are these things under _and_ over cooked at the same time?” Eddie asks. “Whatever, doesn’t matter. Venom- that’s the alien’s name- told me there’s a potential invasion force but I don’t think its that dangerous- stop looking at me like that, they have no ship. So we keep them stranded on the comet Drake found them on we’re good,” he says.

Things are never that fucking simple. “Ten bucks says they have a ship Venom doesn’t know about. Also why’s it got an English name, its an alien.” Seems to happen a lot and Thor and Loki- Tony gets them, it appears they visited earth and people made legends about them. Their names aren’t human so much as humans working them into culture. But all these other aliens with human names? What is up with that? Do they all have translators or something?

“V says it’s an English translation- guess he knows the language because I know the language. Also he says I’m stupid because you know a lot more languages than me and that’s rude,” he says, mumbling that last bit mostly to himself. Or, Tony presumes, Venom.

Tony squints, “you gave it a nickname? No, stop that. You can’t nickname aliens, you’ll want to keep him.”

“Uh, he’s a little violent in here so actually no I don’t want to keep him. He also thinks your tater tots are shit,” Eddie says,

So now he’s being insulted by an alien? Yeah, no. “Tell Venom if he wants food he can go make it himself,” he says.

Eddie frowns, “we’re currently locked in a cage so that’s not possible and also he’s talking about eating heads and that’s… well that’s not right so you know. Maybe he shouldn’t cook for himself.”

“ _We_? There is no ‘we’, there is only you and the alien possessing you can lick ass. Stop bonding with it,” Tony tells him.

“Actually I’d prefer you continue- might work out in our favor,” a new voice says and Tony turns to find a blonde woman standing in the lab doorway. Rhodey just behind her indicates that this is probably Danvers.

“Hey uh, you don’t happen to have food do you? Because Stark can’t cook for shit,” Eddie says.

*

The Chinese is way better than Tony’s attempt at cooking and Eddie feels bad for his ex if she’s ever had to eat what he’s made. Danvers seems intent on being polite to him at least- something Eddie has gathered that Ross guy would not be- and once reminded that Eddie isn’t the alien currently occupying his body he at least gives Eddie some basic comforts. He seems to remember something new every few moments and delivers whatever to him quickly.

 _Not like Drake_ Venom reminds him. Yeah, because the guy is a real jackass they all know. _He kept me in a glass cage_ Venom says and yes Eddie knows that too thanks to the video footage. Danvers is currently looking that over. _Tony is polite_ Venom says and Eddie snorts.

“To me, maybe,” he mumbles under his breath.

 _When we escape I won’t eat his head_.

Eddie squints, “how about we eat no one’s head, V?”

 _That’s unlikely_.

At least he’s honest even if Eddie sort of prefers he wouldn’t be. “I take it you have no bodies,” Danvers says to Tony, who sighs and shakes his head. “Great. Than this is useless.”

Rhodey reacts probably the same way Eddie would have back when he still had faith in people. “ _What_? The guy confessed on camera to killing twenty-five people and then _tried to kill Tony_. How the hell is that not useful? Especially since the evidence of Tony’s break out sporting the alien is all over the news right now.”

It surprises Eddie that Tony is the one to say what he’s thinking. “Doesn’t matter, the defense will throw out whatever they need to to create reasonable doubt. And I’m a tech genius who’s never liked Drake- it is reasonable to say I fabricated the video to cover my own ass after breaking into his lab.”

“And the fact that you had an alien no one knew about up your ass?” Rhodey asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Drake will likely claim he knew nothing of it,” Danvers says. “He could have brought back rock samples from a comet without knowing he’d collected aliens with them. If this one accidentally created a genocidal AI accidentally carrying home an alien isn’t out of the question,” she points out, nodding at Tony with the mention of Ultron.

“Or,” Eddie throws out, “temporary insanity.” Danvers and Tony nod at that but Rhodey frowns.

“That works basically none of the time,” he points out.

Again, its Tony that says what Eddie is thinking. “Yeah, and telling Congress to go fuck themselves doesn’t work for anyone either but it’s worked for me and Nat. Rhodey, you’re entire situation right now is figuring out how to make the law stick to people who are consistently above it. And we all know rich people are above the law. Drake’s defense, whatever it is, will work unless we have irrefutable proof and a fuck ton of it.” Rhodey lets out a long sigh and Danvers turns to Tony.

“What have you got?”

*

Technically all the evidence they have was gathered illegally but they’ve been able to corroborate it with public knowledge enough that it looks a lot less like Tony raided Carlton Drake’s systems. “This is a bunch of bullshit,” Rhodey mumbles. “Guy literally tried to kill you on camera and that’s not enough?”

Tony shrugs, “had Obi had a trail the evidence against him probably wouldn’t have been enough and I probably would have ended up in jail too. Sometimes obvious evidence isn’t the best thing to convince people.” Not when its people in power anyways- he can hear all the people in the media chanting now. ‘Stark is a genius, of course he knew!’ ‘He’s s callous, always has been, clearly he’s guilty!’ ‘You’re telling me a math genius _never_ noticed the numbers were off?’ There’s a million more things where that came from and in a lot of ways he’s lucky Obi died when he did and that people felt sorry enough for him at the time to just buy the story. But people only bought it because it came at the exact right time after a good amount of tragedies.

There’s no series of tragedies behind him now and Carlton Drake is likable- likeable public figures are always a pain in the ass to pin down because people rally behind them. In recent years Tony has learned that people will support literally anything no matter the obvious awfulness of a thing- look at the strange amount of support actual _Nazis_ are getting. He’d never thought he’d see the day when people defended _HYDRA_ of all things. If people can support that they’ll support Drake too. Honestly if this was happening two years ago, pre- Ultron, Tony would have had a good amount of public support at his back and with the rest of the Avengers this would have been a far easier to make a case. He would have looked much more trustworthy but this isn’t two years ago and, for all the public knew, Tony broke into the guys lab and busted out in what could be something he _made_.

So now he has to work extra hard to seem credible because people view him as the source of most of their problems and in their defense they’re thirty percent right about that. Making Carton Drake look as guilty as he is with limited resources will take work, especially when he can afford good lawyers. To be fair, so can Tony even after managing to round up pretty much every homeless person willing to leave their space. And that- what a mess, though he’s managed to get a good communication system going with a bunch of experts to get people moving on short notice well enough. He supposes he does have a fair amount of experience putting together relief teams on no notice at all so this is technically more of that.

Rhodey sighs, “I still think that’s reasonable evidence to at least get warrants or something.”

“Collected from someone who could have fabricated the entire thing, including any and all time stamps, and no one would ever know the difference. There isn’t anyone in this country, or most other countries, that are better than me with tech. If the person looking at it isn’t inclined to think I’m trying to cover my ass it’s useless,” Tony points out. Sure, Eddie could say he was watching it in real time but he’s recently disgraced thanks to forgetting the ‘investigative’ half of his title of investigative journalist. And, to make it worse, he’d been after Drake and has a vested interest in helping Tony out. He has no real motivation to help Eddie with anything but Drake isn’t a moron, he’d figure something out and make it look good.

“I’d be able to tell,” Rhodey says. “I might not be as good as you are but I can figure out what you do better than anyone else we’ve ever come across,” he points out.

From his cell Eddie snorts, “and you’re his best friend that conveniently supports him. No one would expect different.” Rhodey looks to Tony and he shrugs because Eddie is right, Rhodey _does_ have reason to cover for him and a twenty five year long history of doing everything humanly possible to make sure Tony doesn’t see his ass flamed for whatever he’s done now. Hell, he’s shown up in Tony’s place to get awards he’s won often enough that people sort of expect him to show up still and its been almost a decade since Rhodey has covered for him. Shame that his talent is totally lost in that- Rhodey may be permanently attached to Tony’s hip but he shouldn’t be defined by him.

Rhodey sighs, “shut up and get your alien friend to tell us where the bodies are,” he says.

“Probably cremated and thrown in the sea or some shit,” Tony says, earning looks from both Rhodey and Eddie. “What? If I off and killed homeless people I’d still cover my ass and make sure they couldn’t be found _and_ got rid of all alien evidence. Cremation solves those problems,” he points out.

“Fantastic, we know Tony would make an intelligent Carlton Drake. Have you found anything useful?” Carol asks as she walks into the room with four coffees. Thank fuck- even Eddie looks relieved by the presence of coffee.

Tony shrugs, “bunch of stuff that’s obviously legit, but could have been tampered with if someone wants to make that argument. Its all digital.”

Carol hands him a coffee and sighs, “great,” she mumbles, handing Rhodey a cup too. “Stark, give Eddie his coffee, I’m not risking alien body snatching.”

He huffs out a laugh and takes Eddie’s cup, standing. “You probably shouldn’t be too concerned. That thing was already in me so it sort of knows literally everything about the US military.”

Carol gives Rhodey a dirty look and he at least has the good sense to look sheepish. “Tony isn’t usually aliens,” he says softly.

“You _do_ realize exactly how many laws you’ve broken giving him classified information, right?” she asks.

Rhodey shrugs, “I mean, he could hack into our stuff and find everything anyways. Might as well give him the passwords and save him time.”

Carol rubs her temples. “People would kill for your career and you’re handing out passwords,” she mumbles. “I underestimated how much you two are attached at the hip.”

“To be fair,” Tony says, “I don’t usually do anything with the information. Sometimes I change the nuclear launch codes, though,” he jokes.

The look on Carol’s face is so worth the joke. She glares at Rhodey, who puts his hands up, “that wasn’t me! _I_ don’t have those codes, how would I give them to him? Pretty sure that was a joke. That _was_ a joke, right?” he asks, giving Tony a panicked look.

“Yeah, obviously. Happy to know none of you underestimate my ability to actually do that though,” he says, grinning.

*

The night air is cool on his face as he breathes it in, taking a small break from trying to find some kind of hard evidence against Drake. Coffee is great, but sometimes he needs a little something extra to keep him awake. He’s probably been up for too long but he’s sort of stopped keeping track of that kind of thing. Its not much worth his time when the answer to the question ‘have I been up too long’ is almost always yes.

When he hears footsteps approaching he turns, expecting Rhodey or maybe Carol, but finds Carlton Drake instead. He sighs and rolls his eyes, “what do you want?” he asks. Probably too cocky but he’s too tired to care all that much. Might as well get to the damn point rather than suffer a villain speech.

Drake smiles pleasantly and Tony resists the urge to smack it off. “I hope it won’t be too much to ask for my property back,” he says.

“Pretty sure the alien belongs to itself,” Tony says. Defending an alien- not where he saw his life heading though to be fair the alien is currently in Eddie so technically he’s protecting him.

Drake squints at him for a few moments, “you don’t have Venom anymore,” he states, not asks, and how the hell does he know Venom’s name?

“That’s none of your business,” he says, weary. Something’s going on here and he gets the feeling he isn’t going to like it.

“I’ll only ask nicely once. Where is Venom?” he asks.

As if Tony would give him an answer. “Don’t know, lost him on the subway,” he lies. Its not like Drake is stupid, he knows that’s a lie even if he was dumb enough to think Tony used the subway. Probably should, lower carbon footprint and all that, but also he hates cramped spaces filled with people especially in the mornings so no.

For a moment Drake waits like Tony might change his mind before shrugging almost carelessly. Tony watches what must have happened to him when Venom took over except he’s on the outside and Drake’s symbiote is fucking _hideous_. “ _Where_ is Venom?” the symbiote yells and Tony yelps.

“Jesus _Christ_ you are one ugly fuck!” he yells.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think I'm going to make this toooo much longer. Probably a few chapters or so. Sad ending is still in line though.

Tony has his back pressed to the wall behind him while the symbiote advances. “Where is Venom?” it asks again.

“Fuck if I know,” Tony lies, impressed with his ability to stay calm even though his heart is beating so fast it kind of hurts.

“Hey!” a new voice yells and they both look over to find Carol there, advancing with her gun raised.

“Don’t think that’ll help,” Tony warns her fast.

Carol gives him a look he thinks he’s supposed to get something from but he doesn’t and Drake shot at him when he escaped the lab wearing Venom so he knows that gun won’t do shit. He does, however, have a fast acting backup plan and he pulls the gauntlet from his watch, pressing himself further against the wall just as whatever symbiote Drake is wearing loses interest in Carol’s advancement. Bad timing because it ends up blasted in the face with superheated air. It lets out a loud shriek and steps back.

“Run, damn it!” Carol yells at him and _oh_ , that’s what he was supposed to get from her look.

“What about you?” he asks.

“Who cares, get your ass- god damn it, Stark!” she yells when the symbiote turns back to him. He lifts his hand again and lets out another harsh blast, this one hotter than the last and he gets another scream before he takes off running.

*

Eddie is arguing with Venom over the last egg roll and whether or not to save it when Tony comes running into the lab. “Give me Venom!” he yells.

He frowns and he swears he can feel hovering question marks in Venom’s mind. “What? Why?”

Tony rolls his eyes, “does that even matter? Give me the damn symbiote!”

 _We can go_ Venom says.

“Don’t think that’s what he means,” Eddie murmurs back.

 _When the door opens lets go_ Venom says.

“What’s he saying?” Tony asks.

“Says he wants to go with me,” Eddie says and Tony rolls his eyes.

“Do you know how to fight?” he asks.

 _I do_ Venom answers even though Tony had been asking Eddie.

“Venom can fight,” Eddie says and Tony only pauses for another half a second.

“Get him killed and I’m not taking you back,” Tony hisses at Eddie but they all know he’s talking to Venom.

 _We won’t be killed_ Venom says, which really isn’t all that reassuring.

*

It’s a gunshot that draws Rhodey out given that they aren’t all that popular in this neighborhood and he’s surprised to find Carol battling the ugliest looking alien he’s ever seen. From the resemblance to Tony’s ex alien he’s guessing they’re the same species. He’s about to draw his gun too, useless as it is, when Tony and Venom burst onto the scene. Venom goes straight for the other symbiote and Tony hovers above the fight, clearly assessing things.

“Get back,” Rhodey says to Carol, who gives him a funny look. “Trust me on this- whatever Tony does it’s going to be explosive.”

Carol only pauses for a moment before shuffling over, following Rhodey to a somewhat secluded hiding spot that still provides space to watch the action. “Don’t think I’ll make a habit of following your orders,” Carol tells him and he laughs.

“Wouldn’t dream of it. Or hand out an order if I didn’t happen to know Tony better than you.” It isn’t his place, for one, if he’s going by rank and for two she’s not the following orders type. Which simultaneously explains and doesn’t explain her position in the military. But he supposes he’s the same way, if a little lower on the totem pole. Out of the corner of his eye he sees her smile just a little before turning back to the fight and wincing.

“Shit, Venom just smacked the symbiote off Drake. Yikes, Drake smacked Venom off Eddie back,” she says, wincing again. Even match, from what Rhdoey can make or it at least until Drake’s symbiote decides to whip out _shape shifting_ abilities. Oh, hell no. “How’d Tony not pick up on this one?” Carol hisses.

“Ten bucks says he left it to FRIDAY and the AI wasn’t too clear on what to look for. She’s learning,” he says. Normally he doesn’t care that Tony teaches his AI fledglings things- the AIs have to learn, but this is a little high stakes to be leaving to an AI that isn’t totally clear on what she’s supposed to find.

Carol rolls his eyes, “someone tell him robots aren’t people!” she whispers harshly.

Yeah, Tony already knows that but he thinks of the bots and the AIs like children and he’s never been one to deny an opportunity to learn. And it’s also the only way they get better at their jobs. It’d been why JARVIS felt so human. “Save it for FRIDAY later. For now where the hell did Tony go?” he asks. He’d been hovering a moment ago and now he’s gone. Carol looks around too and spots him first.

“There,” she says, pointing up at the top of the Tower. Rhodey frowns, squinting a bit.

“Oh he is not testing that now,” he accidentally mumbles out loud. Carol gives him a dirty look and he sighs. “In his defense its in the late stages of development.”

“Stop defending his stupid behavior- you’re enabling him,” she tells him. “And tell him to put that back!”

Actually Rhodey can see why he’d get that suit in particular. Like Drake’s symbiote it has the ability to shape shift and Tony’s suit follows Tony’s thoughts instead of requiring him to call out orders to FRIDAY or use eye movements to make commands, and its generally a whole hell of a lot more convenient. “Not a good time to test it, but its way better than his other suits for the situation,” Rhodey tells her.

She rolls her eyes. “Enabler,” she mumbles. “Go get one of those suits yourself I trust you more to deal with this.”

“Yeah, something tells me that by the time I get back to the top of the Tower too much damage will be _oh_ shit,” he says as Tony lands a harsh punch to Drake.

Carol looks back and forth between Rhodey and Tony. “Any way you can get ahold of him?” she asks.

Rhodey considers it for a moment, not sure if he can actually give that he has no idea how that particular suit’s communications work but an idea occurs to him and he pulls out his phone. “Hey, yeah, FRIDAY, send me to Tony,” he says, earning a _look_ from Carol but the bots are good, okay? They know more about the development of any project more than he would and if its possible for FRIDAY to send him to Tony she will.

“Platypus,” Tony says in place of a greeting. “Got any idea how to kill one of these symbiotes?”

Carol looks impressed at least. “Maybe just work on incapacitating it. Obviously it doesn’t like fire or heat, light it up,” she tells him.

“Can’t do that without taking out both Eddie and Venom- had that thought,” he says.

Rhodey knows what Carol is going to say before she says it and he also knows Tony’s response so he cuts out the middleman. “Figure out a way to separate Drake and Eddie long enough to ask Venom what the hell else will stop that symbiote,” he says. Carol frowns and he shrugs. Might as well jump straight to where they were going to end up anyways.

Tony remains silent for a moment. “Rhodey, get over here. I’m going to give you the suit- distract him.” Carol raises an eyebrow at that but Rhodey is already most of the way out of the alley and Tony is flying to him.

*

Eddie looks like shit but they’ve all agreed that his cage isn’t necessary. Venom could have escaped, defected; whatever and he didn’t do any of that. Instead he fought to protect Eddie and the rest of them. And he dished out the super secret alien plans.

“I uh… all I’ve got in here is some chocolate,” he says, handing Eddie a bunny that he isn’t even sure he’s seen before.

He squints at it, “you’re a billionaire and all you have in your fridge and freezer is chocolate and tater tots? What are you, a fucking college student?” he asks and Tony sighs.

“I was previously living at the compound full time- I didn’t keep things here stocked. No need to. Then I was in the mansion for a bit but you know, bad memories, and I restarted construction on my house in Malibu but I obviously can’t live in a construction zone so I ended up here and then I got Venom’d so nowhere in there did I have time for groceries,” he says.

Eddie takes the chocolate and bites off a chunk. “Thanks for saving our asses,” he says, talking about him and Venom, Tony knows. He’s taken to talking about them both when he speaks.

“Why didn’t he go off with- what that symbiote’s name?” he asks.

“Riot,” Venom says and Tony jumps, not used to hearing Venom out loud. A black ball of goo appears over Eddie’s shoulder and jeeze, he’s not pretty either but damn he’s more attractive than Riot was.

“Great. Why not take off with him? Seems like a more logical choice than fighting him.” Especially since he has the ability to fucking shape shift. FRIDAY, in her attempts to wrangle all alien related material, hadn’t found that yet. Turns out she had only just started sifting through Asia for news stories and had picked up a few right as Riot showed up. Sheer luck that the AI hadn’t gone through news from that particular continent sooner.

“You. And Eddie,” Venom says and at least Eddie looks just as confused as he does.

“Us? What’d we do?”

Venom has a strange style of moving, like some part of him is always in motion and he also has a weird habit of bobbing a little but maybe that’s just how his species works. “On my planet I wasn’t really that special. Here I can be something more,” he says.

Well, he’s not wrong. “So basically you were sick of being a loser,” Tony sums up and Eddie gives him a dirty look.

“Hey, don’t be rude. He saved our asses too,” he says.

Damn bleeding heart. What’s weird though is that Venom shifts a little closer to Eddie and its almost… affectionate? Tony writes it off because judging alien behavior based on human assumptions seems like a dumb idea. And in his defense the entire field of anthropology backs him up there. “Sure, but that doesn’t make my statement less true,” he points out.

Eddie opens his mouth to defend Venom but Venom speaks first. “Its okay, Eddie. I like his honesty.”

“Yesterday you wanted to eat Carol’s head because she didn’t get you coffee too and now you’re okay with insults? Pick a speed, man.”

Tony laughs a little. “Look, whatever. I appreciate your help,” he tells Venom. “I uh, should probably go figure out what Carol is doing about Drake. And you,” he adds to Eddie before stepping away. Eddie grips his arm and pulls him back a little though.

“Look, he’s a hat!” he says excitedly, pointing at Venom, who has settled over Eddie’s head like a bad bald cap and Tony snorts and starts laughing.

“What the hell?” he asks, wondering where that came from as Venom melts into Eddie’s body again.

“Seemed like you could use a laugh. Your life seems kind of dreary,” he says.

It is, but it could be worse. “I do okay,” he says, eyes flickering down to where Eddie still has ahold of his arm. “Thanks for the laugh, though.”

“Just kiss,” Venom says, appearing out of Eddie’s shoulder and Eddie gives him one hell of a confused look.

“What are you on about?” he says probably too defensively. He still hasn’t let go of Tony’s arm.

“I know what you know, Eddie,” Venom says in an almost threatening way that makes Tony laugh.

“You wouldn’t be the first to think I’m pretty,” he jokes.

“Your hideous according to the beauty standards of my species,” Venom says. “Humans have terrible proportions.”

Yeah, like his big ass eyes and weird tar skin that sinks into other people ass has room to talk. Eddie tries to wave him off but Venom just moves to the other shoulder, “you keep your mouth shut, you don’t even know how humans work,” he says.

Of course they both know that’s not true but Venom says it. “I’m in your mind Eddie, I know exactly how humans work. And how you work.”

*

“You have a _what_ in _where_?” Eddie’s ex asks and the new boyfriend looks concerned too. Tony’s impressed with their relationship actually, most people aren’t on as good of terms as these three seem to be.

“Alien in me, its cool though he’s only mostly annoying,” Eddie says.

Anne doesn’t looks the slightest bit convinced so she turns to Dan, “you should probably run some tests,” she says and Tony nods, stepping forward.

“I have all of his vitals from when Venom entered him until now, if you want to take a look,” he says, handing over a stack of paper. Hurt his heart to print that all out instead of just handing over a tablet but Eddie insisted. Tony told him he was killing rainforests and Eddie countered that shitty corporate assholes such as himself were killing rainforests and honestly Tony couldn’t counter that so he didn’t try.

Dan takes the papers and flicks through them. “What’s with the sudden rise in his vitals here?” he asks as he gets to the back of the stack.

Tony shrugs, “don’t know. Haven’t looked into it yet but whatever you need, consider me at your disposal,” he says. Across the lab Eddie frowns a little like he’s trying to figure Tony out and he doesn’t really know what he’s looking for. Tony’s just Tony, Eddie isn’t going to find anything interesting there.


	6. Chapter 6

_You seem confused by his actions_ Venom says to him and yeah Eddie is confused by Tony’s actions, who the hell isn’t?

“Usually most people in his position are soul sucking demons,” he says. Tony though, he seems happy to throw his resources at whatever and he must be running the math in his head constantly given that he doesn’t ever seem to run out of money. And he spends a lot of it.

 _He solved homelessness_ Venom says and Eddie rolls his eyes. Venom doesn’t even know what that is let alone the significance of it. Plus that fix is only temporary, not that Venom knows that either. _Do so. I know everything you know and you think you’ve misjudged Stark_.

He has, yes, but that doesn’t mean he’s about to make a whole new assessment just yet. “You’re a damn billionaire, why do your pants look like that?” Eddie asks, giving the ill-fitting clothing an irritated look. It at least shuts Venom up for the time being and the pants really are heinous. His jacket, that’s clearly tailored, but his pants? What the hell is even going on with those? Across the room Anne covers her mouth and laughs, exchanging a look with Carol, who also seems amused.

“He thinks longer pants make him look taller,” Rhodey says and Eddie frowns.

“You think looking like a toddler wearing his father’s pants makes you look _taller_? Buddy.” He shakes his head and Rhodey lets out a sharp laugh as he covers his mouth, pretending to cough presumably so Tony doesn’t give him the utterly offended face he’s giving Rhodey right now.

“Don’t you have investigative journalist things to do?” he mumbles, arms crossed over his chest in annoyance.

Eddie shrugs, “Carol took over the Drake thing and Venom is kinda boring after awhile so not really,” he says. “I mean, unless you’ve got something and I gotta say, I’m real curious about how you run your business.”

Tony waves a hand at him, “fine, go look into that or whatever.”

Rhodey makes a choking noise and gives Tony a _look_ , “what the hell, man?” Eddie already knows Rhodey doesn’t approve, he’s made that clear through looks and suggesting they toss Eddie back into his previous cage where Drake is now hiding out and pissed. Turns out it can, in fact, house a symbiote just fine even if it happens to be a shape shifting one like Riot that’s real pissed off and looking to escape.

“What?” Tony asks and to his credit he does look genuinely confused.

“You can’t just keep giving him access to all your shit, Tony. Why do I even have to explain this?”

“I’m curious too. He screwed the military when he cut all ties, I want to know what he did next,” Carol says but there’s no malice in her words. That’s curious but Eddie leaves it be for now.

Rhodey sighs, “it was all over the news, green energy. Its not that deep.”

Except Tony managed to bounce back in an impressive way despite being probably the only large name attached to green energy at the moment. Given the way people still deny climate change Eddie wants to know how that is. More than that though he wants to know what the company structure looks like from the inside. Sure, he’s heard good things on social media but he’s heard great things from Amazon bots claiming to be employees too and Tony has a lot more tech ability than Bezos. If he made bots they’d probably resemble actual people and Eddie doubts anyone would know the wiser.

But his willingness to let Eddie snoop around with seemingly no thought into it is compelling. But again, tech genius- he could have buried everything useful anyway and its not like Eddie can top him for knowledge on anything even remotely tech related. Some days he can barely figure out cable works.

“What’s your worst case scenario, Rhodey? What, he finds another Obadiah? Great, I’ll deal with it. What’s the next shittiest thing? Bad business practices? Great, I’ll fix them. He steals everything I own? He doesn’t have the know how and even if he did we both know its not a match for mine let alone better. Seriously Rhodey, I don’t get why transparency is frightening to you,” he says, misunderstanding Rhodey’s worries entirely. Rhodey isn’t much worried about the company, if he was he’d be talking to Pepper not Tony given that she’s the CEO, he’s worried Eddie will find some way to use access to Tony’s stuff to manipulate him.

Considering Tony’s past Eddie supposes that’s not exactly paranoid.

*

With Eddie out of their hair, and the guy is shocking _irritating_ when he wants to know things; they go back to dealing with the Drake problem. “Venom said they had no way here without a ship, which they were supposed to bring back,” Rhodey says.

Carol sighs, “how reliable do we think this alien is?” she asks Tony specifically. He can tell that Rhodey is as surprised by this as he is.

“I uh… why am I the authority on this?” he asks, confused.

“Because you’re the one least likely to give an alien the benefit of the doubt. Your paranoid, we can use that right now,” Carol tells him.

“Is he really?” Drake asks, interrupting for probably the millionth time.

“Yes, now shut the hell up,” Rhodey tells him before turning to Tony but he’s curious about Drake’s opinion on this.

“What do you mean ‘is he really?’” he asks. Because literally everyone in his life seems to think he’s got problems, so why the hell would Drake disagree?

He shrugs, “well, there was New York obviously. Then London. You can technically count Thor as his own event. And now. Doesn’t seem like your paranoid to me, seems more like you’re Cassandra from the Greek myths, always telling the truth but people never listen. You’ve always looked so far ahead people think your nuts and I don’t think you are,” he says.

Tony rolls his eyes, “flattering me isn’t going to convince me to free you,” he tells Drake.

“Aliens are the future one way or another, Stark, and you know it. You’ve known it for years and everyone has shunned you for it. I have more to offer you than these idiots,” he says and Tony shakes his head.

“And we’re back to ignoring him. Venom though- turned with no real reason, seems genuinely attached to Eddie in more than just a biology way, and frankly has no motivation to lie to us. If anything he has motivation to lie in _favor_ of sending a ship, not refusing to send one. Earth being an all you can eat buffet is better than being stuck in a journalist that we kept in a tank for almost two days,” he points out. “Plus there was that kill order hanging over his head. Lying means more chance for escape than telling the truth. I find its best to listen to the person with the least to gain from any given situation.”

Carol considers that and Tony knows Rhodey is skeptical. “And if this is some kind of ruse?” Rhodey asks.

“With what purpose? The symbiotes were brought here by him,” Carol says, gesturing to Drake, “not by themselves. Its not like he’s hiding an invasion.”

“That we know of,” Rhodey says. “Its not like Dip Shit McGee over here would tell us if he sent recon ships to that comet.”

“He probably didn’t,” Tony says and Carol frowns. Rhodey though, he knows what Tony’s argument is already. “Hitting a moving target is extremely difficult, it takes _months_ to get plans like that together if you do it right and even then the chances of things going wrong is more likely than everything lining up just right.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s impossible, though,” Rhodey points out.

“But it is highly improbable, Rhodey.” He looks like he’s going to argue but Carol holds up her hand before lowering it, clearly thinking for a moment.

It takes a long few minutes but she sighs, “you, check Drake’s systems and tell me if anything has been sent anywhere near space in the last three months. And Rhodey, Tony is right. Venom doesn’t have a lot to gain by telling the truth.”

Tony decides to do one better and search for anything in the last three years. Just to be sure.

*

Eddie is out buying snacks, an essential for all things journalism, when he notices he’s being followed. At first he wonders if he’s being paranoid, but then Venom inquires about eating her head- honestly the symbiote needs a better damn diet- he figures he’s not being paranoid. She follows Eddie into the convenience store, carefully making her way over to him while trying not to tip him off.

“Takes skill to follow people around without being noticed,” he says, pulling a can of ravioli off the shelf. “I’m pretty good at it, learned to blend into the background of wherever I am. Kinda necessary for the job, you know? But you? You suck at it,” he tells her, leaning around the corner. She jumps a little and she looks vaguely familiar but Eddie can’t quite place her face.

She sighs, eyes darting around fast in that way that lets him know she’s got good information and she’s scared. It’s not the first time he’s done this type of thing. “Look, my name is Dora Skirth, I work for the Life Foundation and I don’t know where else to go and-”

“Yeah, alright. Come with me,” he says.

*

Tony shakes his head, “I’m impressed with your ability to find sources,” he says but Eddie shrugs.

“She found me. And she’s not too good at sneaking.” No wonder she’d been so scared of Drake, especially when he seemingly went missing. Plus it turns out there’s one more symbiote that Tony has sent out to collect for national and international security purposes. Better than that though Dora has documentation and a lot of the shit Drake pulled, which makes their case a hell of a lot easier to make though its hard to deny all the footage of Drake threatening Tony and then trying to kill him. Plus the already documented attempt at murder. But Dora’s information is more impartial, straight from Drake’s labs rather than potentially constructed by Tony for reasons unknown given that he has the tech ability to do it.

“So she said. We’ve got a warrant though, so now at least my busting into Drake’s systems isn’t illegal. Courts don’t need to know when I got that information, just that I did,” he says.

Eddie shakes his head but he can’t really deny that sometimes skirting the law is necessary. Or breaking it, depending on what’s at stake. “You took a pay cut when you came back from Afghanistan,” he says and Tony frowns at the subject change.

“So?”

“So people in your position probably would have fired a bunch of people or permanently laid them off- you kept them all around and took a pay cut until you rolled out a new business plan. And your stocks fucking _plummeted_.” That had been all sorts of risky and, as usual, it paid off for Tony in the end but he couldn’t have known that’d happen to begin with.

Tony shrugs, “I was the one who made mistakes, invested in all the wrong stuff. Don’t see why other people should have to pay for it. Literally.”

Easier said than done, Eddie knows. “You pay people descent wages,” he says. “Didn’t see that coming. And they get benefits.”

“Why are you acting like this is something I’ve done right, this is basic shit everyone should have,” Tony says, confused but there’s a slight undercurrent of anger there.

“Yeah, and most people don’t offer what you do,” Eddie points out.

“Most people are assholes,” Tony mumbles.

Well, Eddie can’t argue with that though he has a lot more choice words than ‘asshole’. “Sure. Here’s where I have issues though,” he says, pulling a folder from the ground and dropping it on the table he’s sitting at. Tony’s eyes practically double in size.

“Jesus, that thing is like seven inches thick,” he says. “You’ve barely even had a day to look into stuff.”

“I’ve got a accordion folder down here too,” Eddie tells him. “You might want to sit because this is going to take awhile. Also I’ve been doing my own research for some time so you know. I had supplementary reading material.”

Tony sighs, throwing himself into the chair beside Eddie and giving the folder an apprehensive look for a moment before frowning. “Does your alien always decide to act like a pet?” he asks, looking over to Venom’s head resting on his shoulder. “He’s even doing that squinty eye thing pets do when they’re happy. That’s weird,” Tony mumbles more to himself than Eddie or Venom.

He shrugs, “yeah he does weird stuff like that sometimes. Tried to make tater tots this morning but he somehow managed to burn them and under cook them. He’s a shitter cook than you.”

“I’m offended, truly,” Tony says, nose in the air.

Eddie rolls his eyes, “than learn how to cook, rich boy.”

“Brock, I’ve seen your apartment. You don’t know how to cook for shit either and you didn’t even eat most of that rotisserie chicken in the trash- people are starving in Texas,” Rhodey tells him. Tony snorts and starts laughing, which only results in him laughing harder when Rhodey spots Venom’s head on Tony’s shoulder. “Tony what the fuck is that thing doing?” he asks.

Tony shrugs, “do I look like an expert on symbiote behavior? I don’t know.”

Rhodey looks at him and Eddie shrugs too. “Look, he’s just inside me, that doesn’t make me a Venom expert.” He threatens to eat too many heads for Eddie to truly understand him anyways.


	7. Chapter 7

For a good while Rhodey considers it because Tony can handle himself, but he eventually decides he’s kidding himself because Tony can’t handle shit. That’s kind of his whole shtick. His genius brain is great at inventing, and even better at saving people under pressure, but personal relationships? He’s never been good at those and Rhodey is tired of Eddie fucking Brock sniffing around like a damn bloodhound. He wants to find something damning about Tony? Rhodey knows he’ll find it because guess what, every damn person on this planet has something damning about them somewhere. Tony has made mistakes larger than most, that’s true, but he also cares more than most about those mistakes. And unlike the large majority of people Rhodey has spent time with he actually tries to learn from his past.

Doesn’t always work, but the man is only human.

“Hey,” he calls to Eddie. He looks up from the coffee machine he’s standing in front of and raises an eyebrow.

“Rhodes,” he says in a somewhat tense tone. So he knows what’s coming, then.

How does he start this? He considers it for a moment before deciding jumping right in is the best course of action. “Look, Tony is one hundred percent invested in something or one hundred percent not. He’s clearly invested in you for some stupid reason and if you so much as _look_ at him wrong he will be rid of you whether he wants to be or not,” he says.

Eddie examines him for a long moment, head tilted to the side like he’s thinking hard about something. Rhodey can’t imagine what, he’s been pretty damn clear. “How often do you clean up after Tony? Doesn’t it get exhausting picking up what he put down?”

The comment shouldn’t piss him off especially since this isn’t the first time or even the hundredth time he’s been asked that. “People from the outside, they always get that wrong about us. I don’t clean up after Tony- he cleans up his own messes for the most part. I have my own life, my own career- I don’t have time to put Tony to bed every night. But I do watch his back, and I’m fucking tired of people showing up in his life, taking him for everything he has, and then leaving him in the dust.”

Eddie shrugs, “he’s got plenty more than anyone would ever need,” he says and Rhodey lets out a harsh laugh.

“Oh what, white dude from a middle class family is lecturing me on privilege? You think I don’t have fucking eyeballs- obviously he has more than what he needs and he knows it too. But he’s generous, even at his worst he was generous so what floors me is that people feel the need to try and steal from him instead of just asking for what they want. He’d give it to them, even at great personal cost- he’s always been like that. Besides that he’s not just a pile of money, he’s a god damn human being and no one gets to say being in his position financially is a reason to abuse the hell out of him like almost every person in his life has.” Rhodey shakes his head because yeah, he’s got plenty of problems with the amount of power Tony has, anyone with that much power is a danger. Truthfully, though Rhodey doesn’t want to admit it, he’s already done the worst someone with that level of power could. He doesn’t agree with everything the military does either, but what Tony thought he was doing was noble. And he’s done a lot to make up for that too, more than anyone else ever would.

“The hell makes you think I’m looking to abuse the guy? That’s a bit of an assumption, don’t you think?” Eddie asks and yeah, no.

“Buddy, you want to know the grand total number of people in Tony’s life that haven’t abused him in some way? I can count on one hand and I still have a finger to lose. Shit, even the Avengers never looked past his sarcasm and treated him like he was the asshole they seem to assume he is. Funny thing, that- he made sure their gear was always the safest it could be, the _best_ it could be, made sure they had housing, food, other necessities. And they chose to focus on the fact that he’s _sarcastic_. Everyone does it, and almost everyone uses that as the excuse to take, take, take.” Emotionally too- Obi being the most notable of that bunch. But the handful of romantic relationships he’s been in back that up minus Pepper. Rhodey misses them together- he knows he can trust her, but anyone else who comes into Tony’s life? The guy has a habit of attracting the wrong kinds of people and Rhodey doesn’t know how he manages.

Rhodey takes a breath and sighs. “So here’s what you’re going to do. You’re either going to drop that damn chip on your shoulder, or you’re going to fuck off because he doesn’t need your bullshit judgment too. He does a good enough job criticizing himself as it is and when he needs help Pepper and I are more than happy to point him in the right direction. Got it?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

He doesn’t wait for Eddie’s response, he doesn’t need to. He’ll follow Rhodey’s warning whether or not he wants to.

“Rhodes,” Eddie says and Rhodey turns back but makes it clear he’s not going to stick around long. “I read up on the Stark Relief Foundation- kind of expected it to be some PR bullshit. Or at the least something that’s only used for immediate disasters, you know? Corporations, they don’t do long term anything because it costs too much to clean up their messes. Think the Exxon Valdez oil spill, or literally any other disaster caused by a corporation. Its bullshit that anyone can get away with ruining people’s lives like that, so I expected this to be more of that. Turns out that Stark Relief is all over the world in places that Tony hasn’t personally been involved in since the nineties. He wasn’t fucking around when he said he wanted accountability and from what I can tell he’s the only one who wanted to hold himself responsible. The way he treats his disasters should be the legal precedence we use in courts when dealing with corporations because he actually made himself _pay_. To be honest _that’s_ the story I should have written on him,” he says.

Rhodey considers this, the admission that he was wrong and what, if anything, that might mean for Tony. “I told you- Tony is one hundred percent in or one hundred percent out.”

Eddie laughs, “yeah, bit of a personality flaw, that. He should learn how to go seventy thirty sometimes.”

Yeah, as if Rhodey doesn’t have a lifetime of knowledge on Tony to know that too. “He knows that too, but I’m pretty sure he’s got mental problems or whatever.”

“Yeah no shit- guy has problems out the ass but actually holding himself accountable for his actions in some way? That’s surprisingly not one of them and frankly what he does is more meaningful to the victims of his actions than jail time. People need food, not a guy in a cell,” Eddie says.

Rhodey nods, “he did a lot of reading to figure out what he should do and how to employ whatever plan he came up with.” He ran numbers, projections, background checks on every charity he could find- everything he could think of and because Tony is Tony that’s a whole hell of a lot. “Though,” Rhodey says, “if I were to be fair jail time probably wouldn’t hurt anyone either.” Given what Tony has done, anyways, no one who isn’t in his position would find themselves free afterwards. Next on the list of people who’d likely be in jail if not for who they are would be Steve Rogers, honestly. Then Natasha though the reasons there would be slightly pettier. But Rhodey has seen people go to jail for way less than the charges people could bring up against any and all of the Avengers.

Eddie lets out a soft laugh and nods, “‘course it wouldn’t, but the law doesn’t stick to people with power. It’s not set up to deal with massive power imbalances like the ones we have in America and elsewhere. It’s why you’re having so much trouble with the Accords- holding powerful people to account is almost impossible. Nobel of you to try though, even if you’ll fail.”

“You think I’ll fail?” he asks, raising an eyebrow.

“Considering the way people are gathering behind Steve Rogers: American Imperialist, yeah. Don’t know why people think making sure an international police force following laws and guidelines is a governmental overreach but not criminalizing poverty but you know, what the fuck do I know anyways?” he says, rolling his eyes.

They sit in silence for a moment before Rhodey laughs, “yeah, I know. But people love Captain America.” He turns to go but Eddie calls him back again.

“The hell did you mean ‘middle class family’, you grew up middle class too asshole, I did my research,” he says.

Rhodey rolls his eyes but its more of a fond gesture than not. “Then you know my family only ended up that way out of sheer luck given the neighborhood both my parents were from. I grew up well aware of where I could have been, where my parents were both terrified to go back to. I just happened to get lucky.”

*

Tony is attempting to update Rhodey’s suit design with the improvements Rhodey suggested when Eddie finds him. He’s got a black tentacle sticking out of his back carrying a mug and Tony frowns. “Turns out V is better at not spilling shit than I am,” he explains as he sits. “Also your guard dog ate my ass.”

Guard wha- Rhodey, Tony realizes. “He’s overprotective,” Tony says, “don’t pay much attention to him.” He hovers too close, always worried about Tony’s safety and whatnot when he really doesn’t need to do that.

Eddie snorts, “oh he wasn’t giving the option of ignoring him and he meant business. Said something that caught my attention though and I wanted your take on it.” Tony waits for him to continue but when he doesn’t Tony frowns. Venom extends the tentacle to Eddie and he takes the mug, waiting, Tony realizes, for a response. Consent to continue, actually. He shrugs and waves Eddie on. “Said that out of everyone in your life you’ve had only four people not abuse you in some way- how accurate is that?”

He opens his mouth to say that’s not true, then closes it, then opens it again. “I um, think its only three,” he says. Rhodey, of course, Pepper, and Happy. All three are ridiculously overprotective and honestly Happy would fight a houseplant if he thought it was a threat to Tony’s safety. He has, on one hilarious occasion, taken on food in a fight.

“Three people?” Eddie asks as if to clarify. Tony doesn’t know what he’s looking for so he shrugs. “You’ve only had three people not abuse you in your whole fucking life and the best you’ve got for me is a _shrug_?”

“To be fair,” Tony says, “the Avengers weren’t really abusive, but they were assholes. So like, guess that raises the count.”

It doesn’t seem to convince Eddie of anything though. “Yeah, Rhodey said some stuff that makes me question that. I mean he’s probably the most biased source known to man in regards to anything involving you- his judgment is completely clouded by his obvious love for you- but I’ve seen and heard enough on my own to know things were kinky enough to know they weren’t quite right.”

Sure, but is any relationship every ‘quite right’? Not really, in Tony’s experience. Things going wrong is inevitable and he’s made peace with it a long time ago. On that note he perks up, “oh, my mother. That was the fourth person Rhodey was talking about,” he says, pleased to have figured it out.

Eddie, however, looks horrified. “It took you what, almost ten minutes to figure that out?” He stands up and takes the two steps he needs to so he can sit beside Tony. “Has anyone ever thought to ask you if you’re okay?” The question stuns Tony for a long moment before, unexpectedly, tears come to his eyes. He looks away, blinking rapidly because this is absurd and not at all worth tears. Eddie settles a hand on his thigh and squeezes gently. “It occurs to me that, in the context of your life, a lot of your shitty decisions make sense.”

“Being abused isn’t a reason to kill people, Eddie,” he snaps, irritated.

“No fucking shit, Stark. But that’s never what you set out to do even when you were naïve enough to assume the military had good intentions with your weapons. And you couldn’t have predicted your shitty business partner. And after- pretty sure every bad decision you’ve ever made is because you were dealing with the massive psychic fall out of having ruined so many people’s lives. Before you say anything explanations aren’t excuses. You clearly need help, but I’m not convinced you know how to ask for it. Or why you would, given that near everyone you’ve had meaningful contact with has hurt you.” He wraps an arm around Tony and for a long few moments they sit like that- Eddie offering some attempt at comfort while Tony begrudgingly accepts it.

It’s hard to stay stiff though, and its hard to keep his shit together when, for the first time in a long time someone has thought to ask if he’s okay. The last person to do that was Rhodey, right before he told Tony that he doesn’t need to do things on his own. Logically he knows that but an intellectual understanding of support systems doesn’t make him any more inclined to let go of the soul deep fear that telling people about his pain or his plans will result in betrayal. “I think you’ve got a point about my psychological problems influencing my bad decisions,” he eventually tells Eddie.

Eddie sighs, “I know I do. It’s easy for people, myself included, to tell you to make better decisions, to consult with people around you. But anyone who’s used to the people closest to them harming them in some way when they open up, well- why the hell would they collaborate with people who will more than likely fuck you over? Good news is that your long distance collaboration is fucking stellar.”

Stark Relief, Tony guesses. That’s probably the only long distance collaborating he does and he’s consistently updating things on how it runs. Plenty of researchers linger in areas he cleans up to document the affects of the relief team- if they help or not. Its useful for how the relief foundation runs, but in a larger context its actually useful for how _any_ wide scale attempts at community reform should run. And, like any project involving people and formulas, there’s always a place for improvement.

“Good to know,” Tony murmurs.

*

Eddie is going to throw Venom out the window. _You should kiss him_ he says like he has authority on what Eddie should or should not do with the distraught billionaire leaning into his body. _Well you want to_ Venom points out. Yeah, and sometimes he wants to do cocaine about his problems, doesn’t mean he’s going to go roll up a twenty-dollar bill and go snort it. _If you don’t do it I will_ Venom threatens and what the holy hell?

“Would you shut _up_?” he mumbles hopefully too low for Tony to hear. He’s unsuccessful though because Tony stirs a little.

“What?” he asks and Eddie sighs.

“Venom is being a jackass,” he says. Tony makes a noise of understanding and lays his head back on Eddie’s shoulder.

 _Is my species attractive to yours_? Venom asks because that’s apparently normal. Also _fuck_ no, Venom is nightmare fuel but at least he’s nowhere near as hideous as Riot. _That’s offensive_ Venom tells him. _And hurtful_ he adds. Yeah, Eddie’s a bleeding fricken heart over whether or not Venom is attractive to humans. Shit, even humans aren’t attractive to humans so he shouldn’t even be offended.

 _You have memories of humans being attracted to strange things_ Venom says and Eddie swears to _god_ if this is about the article he wrote on BDSM around the time Fifty Shades came out that was attempting to correct misinformation Eddie will scream. Leather is not the same as tar alien with weird eyes and teeth the size of your head. Even if he does have something of an appeal. _I thought I was nightmare fuel_? Eddie rolls his eyes. Like humans don’t find themselves attracted to nightmare fuel sometimes- it happens. But most humans wouldn’t be attracted to Venom.

 _I think you’re lying to yourself. What are your thoughts on Tony? Not those ones_ Venom tells him and he asked, Eddie can’t be helped.

He sighs, “Tony,” he says softly and he rouses, lifting his head off Eddie’s shoulder to look at him.

 _Do it or I will_ Venom threatens and Eddie is giving this damn thing back to Carlton Drake immediately, in jail or no. He reaches out, brushing his fingers along Tony’s jaw and earning a surprised look for it but he reacts well, leaning into it. Eddie decides it’s a good enough reaction to hedge his bets and he leans forward, kissing Tony softly. He goes to pull away to let Tony process that some but he pulls Eddie back instead.

 _I am a human expert- you should listen to me always_ Venom declares.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second last chapter ma dudes.

“So I was going over that data,” Dan says and Tony leans in, curious. “And Eddie’s vitals going up can only possibly be linked to eating chocolate.”

Tony frowns, “that can’t be the only thing that changed.”

Anne shrugs, “only other thing that deviated from his normal routine is that he didn’t eat any Hot Pockets at 3 a.m, didn’t pet any dogs on the street, and he’s basically living here. None of those things seemed to do anything so chocolate it was,” she says.

Its weird that she has that much knowledge on Eddie’s daily habits and given the look on Eddie’s face when she mentioned the Hot Pockets he agrees. “Shut up, V. You don’t need Hot Pockets,” he mumbles, shaking his head. He does that often now, talks to Venom out loud. Rhodey thinks its weird and keeps making awkward possession jokes he clearly genuinely believes.

“That’s it? Chocolate?” Tony asks. Seems simple to him but hey what’s he know? Actually he knows a lot and that does seem too simple.

“Looks like it, yeah,” Dan says.

That can’t be it. “Guess we should test it out, see if its that _brand_ of chocolate, all chocolate, some brands but not others, or if its something that happened to be in that chocolate in particular,” he says and Eddie frowns.

“Do you always overcomplicate things like this?” he asks and then his eyebrows draw together. “V, you don’t even know what Hot Pockets are… yeah, that’s better than eating _heads_ but eating heads is _murder_ and we’ve talked about that. No, murder is not okay! Jesus, I’ll get you the damn Hot Pockets, shut up. And don’t eat anyone.”

They all give Eddie a confused look for a moment before going back to the conversation. “Its not over complication, its science. We need to know if the chocolate is actually what made your vitals go up or not. For health reasons,” he says.

“Whatever man, I’ll just eat chocolate and hope for the best,” Eddie says. “After I get V some Hot Pockets so he stops threatening to eat people.”

Anne shakes her head, “you’re only encouraging bad behavior,” she warns him.

*

On any given day Tony hates Ross but on this day in particular he sort of wishes murder were legal. “What do you propose we do, then?” he asks.

“Contain the problem,” Ross tells him. “Like you did with _that_ one.” He gestures to Drake, who looks no more impressed than he had ten minutes ago.

Tony looks over to Drake. “He caused a problem to be contained,” he points out.

“We don’t know what the hell he is,” Ross says, jabbing a finger in Eddie’s direction.

“Yeah, might let you do it…” Eddie mumbles, presumably to Venom and if Tony knows anything about Venom’s patterns of asking for favors he just asked to eat Ross’ head. Tony might let him too given that he should have been fired after Bruce let alone everything that came before or after Abomination.

“He isn’t a threat,” Carol tells him, joining the fray.

Ross turns to glare at her, “and what the hell makes you think that? Stark? Like he’s a reliable source.”

Carol clearly doesn’t take well to being questioned but doesn’t let it get to her. Her chin tilts up a little in defiance, “we know where the comet Venom’s species is, were able to locate it, double check that Drake didn’t send anyone or anything else to it, and we know who Drake’s symbiote is by name and who he is to his people. Every single scrap of that information, save for knowing where Drake’s rockets are, was gathered from Venom with a death order hanging over his host. Not much of a motivation to talk but he did, so hop off your vendetta Ross I’m in charge here and I say he’s useful to US national security and international security. His information is vital.”

Eddie lets out a soft ‘oooooo’ that makes Tony laugh a little. Ross glares at them both before turning back to Carol, “you don’t have the authority to decide anything about international politics.”

“Neither do you outside the Accords and I’ve read your stipulations- not only does Eddie not fit the bill even with Venom, but Venom is an alien and it would be rather stupid and shortsighted to assume an alien would follow a human law that hasn’t even been passed yet. I’ve got meetings with people more important than you on the Venom situation and you will stand _down_ ,” she tells him.

Tony looks over to Rhodey, who’s giving Carol an appreciative nod. He rolls his eyes and resolves to tell him to get a room later when Ross won’t hear it.

“Cool, does that mean I can get Subway?” Eddie asks, gesturing to the door behind him.

“No, it absolutely does _not_ mean you can do anything. He’s a time bomb, Danvers,” Ross tells her and she rolls her eyes.

“Anyone who took a half a glance at Drake knew he was nuts and no one arrested him. Could be that no one saw it or it could be the money he throws at the military- given what I know about you I’d say it’s the latter,” she tells him.

Damn, that’s ballsy but Tony happens to know that Rhodey tends to make friends with people who take risks. Helps that he’s a risk taker too, if in a much more calculated and less impulsive way than Tony. Ross doesn’t look impressed with this but his response, that that’s only speculation, is rather pitiful.

Eddie doesn’t seem to buy it either, “hm, could be my next story. You know, since your guy got me fired from the last job I had,” he points out.

“This time try and get a little evidence before you go slinging accusations,” Tony advises and Eddie rolls his eyes fondly.

“Oh yeah, you’re the poster child for waiting for more information,” he teases.

Tony grins a little, “take it as a passing on of knowledge,” Tony tells him, grinning.

Ross looks between the two of them and wrinkles his nose. “Are you… are you _dating_ him? You know he’s possessed by an alien, right?” he asks like this isn’t information they were literally just arguing about. Carol rolls her eyes.

He shrugs, “whatever. Alien has always been on my ‘to fuck’ list anyways.” Ross gags and Rhodey gives him a sympathetic look.

“For once I agree.”

*

Tony aims a piece of bun and throws it, smiling as Venom catches it easily. “If you keep doing that he’s going to beg for food every time you have it. Trust me, I know,” Eddie warns him.

“I don’t mind,” Tony says. “Plus it’s a great test of reflexes and dexterity.” Its useful to know how fast Venom reacts to the things around him and watching his extreme flexibility is fascinating. For all intents and purposes he appears to be a liquid, and Tony would love to know how his anatomy works given that he clearly has his own conscious but also has the ability to blend totally with Eddie’s physiology. He also has the ability to separate from Eddie as well. Its impressive to watch.

“Stop thinking about science while feeding Venom, its weird,” Eddie says as Tony throws another piece of bun wide and watching a black tentacle fly out and snatch it. Fast reflexes even without eyes on the object, interesting. Tony wonders if Venom’s senses work in ways that are different from the way human senses work. Or maybe he’s somewhat limited by Eddie’s limits. But no, he knows human limits don’t seem to affect Venom at all- he proved that when they escaped Drakes lab.

“Can’t help it, I’ve always wanted to meet an alien until I did and then I still wish I could undo that. Not fun, that. Venom seems harmless though, so you know, now I can figure out how he works.” He throws a small piece of meat from his sandwich and Venom flies out of Eddie’s shoulder ten times faster to go after that. “Guess he’s not a vegetarian.”

Eddie frowns, “threatening to eat people’s heads didn’t tip you off?” he asks.

Tony shrugs, “I mean, we’ve never seen him do it. For all we know he was all talk.”

“He says he isn’t,” Eddie says, looking concerned enough that Tony decides Venom probably isn’t kidding. If he even knows how to do that. Or maybe he does, he seems to interact with humans fine and more than implied that access to human physiology taught him how to act human. His brain must process things at extremely high speeds for that to be true, he wonder’s what Venom’s IQ would be- “Tony,” Eddie says, pulling him back to the conversation. No science at the dinner table.”

“But science is fun,” he says, pouting.

Eddie leans forward an kisses him softly, “sure it is but when you have an annoying alien in your head continuously asking what your thinking about its annoying,” he points out.

An idea occurs to Tony. “I mean we’re compatible- I can run tests, leave you out of it,” he says and Eddie looks offended.

“No, I like Venom!”

Tony rolls his eyes, “than don’t whine about the science I have like five hundred questions and Drake’s shit attempts at figuring out these symbiotes makes me want to gouge mine _and_ his eyes out.”

Eddie rolls his eyes at Tony fondly and opens his mouth to talk but FRIDAY talks at the same time his phone rings. “Sir, there’s a problem,” the AI says as Tony answers the call. Peter.

“Hey- give me a second FRI,” he adds, “what’s the problem?” He’s been told to call only in emergencies and so far he’s stuck to harassing Happy, who really does need a lesson in how to handle children.

“Um, yeah, sir- there’s like this ugly ring ship thing hovering over New York right now and-”

“Get your spider ass back inside whatever vehicle you’re sticking to the side of,” he tells Peter.

Eddie laughs but this is _so_ not a good time. “Sir you don’t have time, there’s a ship of some kind hovering over New York,” FRIDAY tells him and the smile on Eddie’s face disappears as he gives the ceiling a panicked glance.

“Not the symbiotes,” Eddie tells him immediately and Tony nods because he knows that.

“I already had Ned distract everyone and oops I fell off the bus see you at the ship _bye_!” Peter tells him and Tony curses the damn kid out mentally. As soon as he hangs up his phone rings again. Ross. “Its not the fucking symbiotes and I’m on my way,” Tony snaps at him as he walks off.

“Wait,” Eddie says, following him down the hall, “do you need help?”

He spins to face Eddie. “I’ve seen you in a fight and you’re effectively a civilian being possessed by an alien so _no_. Venom is the one with combat skills and Drake was an exception to letting him lose because we had no idea how to handle Riot. Stay here. And make sure Drake doesn’t make an escape while we’re busy,” he adds, knowing he and Eddie have more in common than either of them might care to admit. Without some kind of goal he’s not going to stay put.

*

 _You don’t seem convinced he’s coming back_ Venom says, voice lower in Eddie’s head than usual. Eddie didn’t even know he could do that and wouldn’t Tony just love this random piece of knowledge.

“People don’t leave on random ships and come back,” he tells Venom. “And I don’t even know who the guy in the cloak was that he was so adamant about going after anyways.” Fucking Tony, does the man even know how _not_ to make an impulse decision every time he has a fucking impulse? He’s reminded of Freud’s theory of the mind and yeah he knows most of that shit was weird and made no sense but he still can’t help but think of Tony as full Id, always doing the first dumb shit that comes to mind.

Like fucking off on some alien ship.

“Death doesn’t stick to Tony well,” someone says and Eddie jumps, turning to find Rhodey standing in the doorway to the lab looking tired.

“Doesn’t mean there isn’t a time where it won’t,” he points out.

Rhodey sighs and walks in. “Tony had trackers in all of his suits- probably won’t take us far given that they were never meant to track him through _space_ but it might give us some kind of direction,” he says.

Eddie rolls his eyes, “humans haven’t even gone past the fucking moon- what the hell are we going to reasonably do?” he snaps. And that pisses him off- Tony just made human history by being the first human out that far along with the wizard and not a single fucking person is talking about it on account of him being _gone_ on an alien ship. And no one, Venom included, knows how or why they were even here. Just that they seemed damn intent on capturing that wizard and that Tony had found some kind of life altering value in the guy since he went after him.

“Look, I don’t know but… but we have to do something, I am not just fucking _leaving_ him out there,” he says, voice breaking on that last bit and Eddie runs his fingers through his hair. Fuck, what a mess.

 _I’ve been in space. I know my way around- we can find him_ Venom tells him and he sits up fast enough that he catches Rhodey’s attention.

“Venom’s been to space, knows his way around. Whatever information we glean off Tony’s tracking systems Venom might be able to pick up a trail,” he says. Doesn’t fix their travel problem, which means they’re still fucked but if they can at least find some kind of trail maybe they can solve the travel problem to so fuck Eddie doesn’t know but he’s not good at doing nothing.

A soft knock on the door captures his and Rhodey’s attention. “I um… Tony might not like Carlton’s designs or methods but um… his rockets are meant for deep space travel,” Dora says and Eddie looks to Rhodey.

He shrugs, “I’ve learned to fly weirder on the fly. FRIDAY, give me everything you’ve got on Tony’s last known location.” Dora enters the room and goes to a computer as FRIDAY gives Rhodey the details. Eddie notes that she’s got the schematics of one of Drake’s rockets on the screen and he sure as fuck hopes Rhodey knows how to read that shit because he doesn’t.

 _Its rudimentary and offensive_ Venom tells him and he frowns because how does Venom know that? _I was in Tony’s head, I know what he knows. But it’ll work._


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Last Chapter. Sorry dudes, this is sad af.

Carol and Rhodey are talking about a bunch of shit Eddie doesn’t understand. And when he tried to look it all up he came to the conclusion that he doesn’t even understand what he doesn’t understand. So he lets them talk while he watches for any sign of any communication from Tony. As it stands, nothing, though several people have noticed that Spider Man, a new feature in Queens, is also missing. Has been for as long as Tony has been gone. Could be related, but Eddie doesn’t really have a reason to consider they are. Oh, and apparently some wizard went missing too. Tony’s last transmission was to Rhodey and it was something about a time stone. The one before that was a brief apology to Eddie. He suspects Pepper was contacted at some point too but at the moment she’s too busy trying to field the press on all this to talk to anyone about much of anything. If Tony said something important she would have told them all anyways.

 _This is slow_ Venom says in his head and yeah no shit. But humans can’t just shoot themselves into space with no idea where they’re going, not really, and even with V’s help none of them have been trained to deal with space conditions except Carol. Apparently there was a time when she wanted to be an astronaut and went through most of the training required, which means she knows enough to ensure safety but she and Rhodey have spent a bunch of time arguing over who is going to save Tony’s ass. Eddie and Venom aside, obviously.

He doesn’t give a fuck _who_ goes, so long as they pick up the fucking pace already. Tony has been gone for almost a week and no one knows what that means. And none of the Avengers got any transmissions from Tony at all, though the princess of Wakanda did get a warning regarding Vision that mirrored Rhodey’s message. Something about a stone, but not one related to time. Eddie can’t quite remember.

 _We should leave without them_ V suggests and Eddie sighs.

“We aren’t leaving without backup, V. That’s stupid,” he mumbles.

 _They keep arguing. That’s stupid._ Yeah, Eddie has no argument for that.

“V, we wait. For now.”

*

There’s a bunch of shit Tony didn’t anticipate. The spider kid he saw was keeping tabs on through YouTube, Strange, finding _Bruce_ of all people totally by accident and having to do an impromptu rescue mission, _Thanos_.

“I’m sorry,” Bruce tells him as they go through space. The stars are beautiful and terrifying.

Tony turns to face him, “what do you mean?” he asks.

“You told us this was going to happen and we didn’t listen. And you were right- Thanos… Thanos is terrifying, Tony. He had no problem taking on the Hulk and he has more infinity stones than any being has ever had before.” Tony nods- he almost had Strange’s too, but they managed to ruin that plan. Tony can only hope that the Avengers don’t fuck up hiding Vision in a garbage can or something.

“We should try and find some way to send a message back to earth,” he says eventually, earning a flicker or approval from Strange.

“I have a few magical-” Tony waves him off.

“I’ve had enough of magic, thanks. Kid, what’d you find in the communications systems on this thing?” he asks Peter.

Peter pops his head out from the area Tony had located- kid’s smart, but not quite on par with him so he needed a little help. “Um, I couldn’t do anything with it but I’m not you. Looks like this thing was made for long distance communication though, I think its tied into the navigation systems too. That’s why we’re being guided… wherever.” Yeah, he meant to ditch Peter on the planet but the little asshole dodged his attempt to guide him to the ground and stuck himself to Tony’s ass.

Try as he might that fluid of his sticks well and Tony had a choice. Ditch the kid or go after the ship. He chose to do both- go after the ship and send Peter home in his suit once he was on it but the little fucker refused to go and he’s faster than the nano bots. So now he’s stuck with someone’s kid on a ship in space because he’s a teenager who makes bad choices. But he’s smart, so Tony might as well make use of that.

He nods, “great. Bruce, help me out here. The least we can do is try and tell the Avengers we aren’t dead.”

“Yet,” Strange says in that freaky, ominous way of his.

Tony gives him a dirty look for freaking Peter out. “Why don’t you do some magic to figure out what the hell we’re up against instead of acting like a bad psychic,” he says.

*

Its not Tony they get communication from first, which surprises Eddie but Venom’s knowledge surprises them more. _Guardians of the Galaxy_ he supplies and Eddie frowns. “Who of the what? When the hell did they save the galaxy?” he asks.

 _From the Cree approximately two years ago. too far from earth for you to hear. It’s why we fled_ Venom supplies and Eddie sighs, playing the message.

The guy on screen looks human though Venom tells him right away he isn’t, but he’s not Xandarian either. The woman- Eddie thinks that’s a woman anyways, he doesn’t know how aliens work, is green though so clearly that’s not the alien standard, looking human. “Look, I don’t have a lot of time but you need to listen the fuck up, alright? There’s a guy coming, name is Thanos and he’s bad fucking news, okay? He’s after what are called infinity stones. He broke into Nova and stole the power stone already, he got the time stone from the Asguardians, and we’re on our way to the Collector’s place to make sure he doesn’t get the reality stone too. Hide the stones, move them to another planet, I don’t give a fuck _what_ you do with them just make sure Thanos can’t get them,” the guy says and then that’s it.

“Do we know who that is?” Rhodey asks him, Carol looking his way too.

“Peter Quill,” Drake informs them. “Guardian of the Galaxy, according to Riot.”

Rhodey and Carol immediately turn to him and he nods. “Venom said pretty much the same.”

“Now would be a good time to remind you all you’ve already lost one of those stones. Riot tells me they’re the most powerful things in the universe,” Drake tells them all unhelpfully. Fucking prick looks like he’s enjoying himself too. Rhodey and Carol turn to him for another affirmation.

 _Riot is telling the truth. There’s no use in fighting Thanos if he has two infinity stones already though- he’s now the most powerful being in the universe. We should flee_. Eddie sighs, “Venom says he’s unbeatable,” he tells them, “and that we should cut our losses.”

“Fuck that, we’ve only got one planet,” Rhodey say but Eddie shakes his head as Venom explains more.

“No, V says if you can control even _one_ stone you’re the most powerful person on the planet. If this Thanos asshole has two we don’t stand a chance. Says if he gets even one more he could enact _intergalactic damage_ with little more than the snap of his fingers,” he tells them. Fuck _sakes_ all those bullshit alien invasions, international political squabbling, men flying around in suits and it all gets ruined by some jackass with some fancy stones? Figures that some alien with a hard on would fuck them before they managed to fuck the planet into fucking them.

“Oh, he has bigger plans than that,” Drake tells them, leaning into the glass gleefully. “Apparently he wants to wipe out half of the universe. Population control, as he lovingly termed it.” Rhodey and Carol turn to him.

 _There were rumors that’s what he wanted. All we know of for sure is the genocides he committed_ Venom tells him, voice surprisingly soft.

Eddie sighs. “This guy has already decimated multiple planets. _Without_ the stones,” he tells them. “We better get something better than the fucking Avengers on this shit.”

Rhodey, Carol, Ross, the Avengers, Wakanda, and a half a dozen other nations are all bickering it out over what to do. Eddie has dubbed it The Vision Problem. Idiot Steve is arguing to save his life, Vision has already offered himself up for sacrifice, T’Challa is arguing they try to save Vision, but terminate him if they must, and Eddie is having a hard time keeping his mouth shut while Venom tells him to flee. They can find Tony and avoid this mess, he argues, but Eddie knows it’s not that simple. Nothing is ever that fucking simple.

He’s pacing while Rhodey argues to kill Vision also, offering the android a brief apology for it, when Steve jumps in with a vehement argument that they don’t trade lives. Eddie wants to yell at him that he’s trading a fucking robot for _half the universe_ if Riot and Venom’s information is good but he doesn’t. He doesn’t even point out that Steve does so fucking trade lives. He traded his back in World War Two when he downed that plane instead of letting it fly to New York with that bomb in it. Ross, unsurprisingly, argues to kill Vision. Guy is too trigger happy for Eddie’s tastes, always after killing things first, finding literally any other solution later.

Carol asks T’Challa what the chances of saving Vision are, if Shuri really could separate the stone from Vision before they get attacked. That’s when the second message comes in, same guy as before.

“Hey assholes,” Eddie tells them, sticking his head in Tony’s lab. There’s a glorified blanket over Drake’s current prison, which is laughable at best. Everyone who isn’t in physical attendance is a hologram. “We have another message from the Guardians.”

They all still as he comes into the room and plays it. Peter Quill, according Riot anyways, is crying on screen. The background shows the setting he’s in is on fire. “He’s got Gamora and she told me… told me that she’s the only one that knows where the soul stone is. She… made me promise to kill her and I tried but he already had the reality stone and-” Peter’s words cut out and he looks away, tears streaming down his face. Obviously he was close to Gamora, whoever that is.

Peter sniffs, gathering himself before turning to face the camera again. “Look, he’s already basically unstoppable. He can control reality itself so basically we’re fucked. But he needs all the stones for the snap- to wipe out half of all life, that’s what he wants,” he clarifies. “I don’t know if he’ll get to the soul stone, I know Gamora will try and do everything in her power to make sure that doesn’t happen but we need to face the facts. He’s probably going to get the damn stone. So if you have the infinity stones _get rid of them_ and kill anyone who knows where they are.”

The message blinks out and everyone remains silent for a long few moments. “I don’t normally side with Ross but we need to kill Vision stat,” Rhodey says bluntly.

Carol sighs, “that… isn’t ideal, but I’m not sure we have the option to wait. Your sacrifice will be the most important thing in the history of this galaxy, Vision, and that will not go unappreciated,” she tells him.

Vision nods, “I accept that.”

*

Eddie watches as everyone loses their shit when the message from Tony comes in but FRIDAY catches his attention before he can go and see what Tony has sent everyone. “He sent a special message for you,” the AI tells him. He walks away from the others, making his way to, of all places, Tony’s room, before sitting on the bed. The television blinks on, presumably controlled by FRIDAY, and the message plays.

Tony looks sad, and exhausted, but he smiles a little anyways. “This is a suicide mission. We found Bruce, he’s fine, but escaped a genocide only barely. Thanos, if Venom knows who that is. That’s… not why I made this though. I’m sorry Eddie, I didn’t…” he looks away, grief flickering across his features for a moment. “I didn’t want this to happen. I wanted to see what we could be, how we’d work. I know you’d challenge me, force me to do better- you wouldn’t hold back. Its one of the things I love about you, that blunt honesty, the intense way you scrutinize everything until you find that nugget of truth you were looking for. The _passion_ you have for it. You’d hold me to account in a way few other people do and I’d love for it,” he says, lips tipping up a little.

“Shit, even Venom is alright. Bit violent, but we’d work on that. Not that we’ll get to, now. I don’t know where I’m drifting off to, and I know I won’t be back, but I want you to know that I didn’t want this, to leave you behind. I wanted to see what we could be, to have those mile stones every couple has you know? I wanted to argue over dumb shit, act annoyed that you took Venom’s side over mine, or that Venom needs to eat something that’s not tater tots or whatever food he might grow attached to later. I wanted to see your face when I told you that I loved you, preferably in an ostentatious setting, I would accept nothing less. You’d probably call me dramatic, but I’d know that’s your version of ‘I love you too’. And I’m sorry that I screwed us both out of that. So I guess…” Tony pauses, looking away again before gathering himself enough to look back.

“If we don’t succeed in taking Thanos down on wherever the hell this ship is going earth is next on his stop. If he gets there, don’t fight. Run. For me.” That’s it, the message cuts out and Eddie wants to throw something at the screen but he doesn’t because he’s too busy crying. Fucking Tony, had to go play hero like a fucking idiot.

*

The decision, mostly thanks to Steve’s fighting it out, is that Vision gets to live as long as Thanos isn’t on the planet. Shuri works to try and detach the stone from his head and Eddie already volunteered to take it since he’s got Venom. One man, no one will know where he or Venom are going, it’s the best way they have to keep Thanos from getting the stone. And if he shows up on earth he will have one hell of a match because Eddie will not give up that stone easily. Not when Tony will have died trying to prevent that asshole from getting there to begin with. The benefit, if Eddie can even call it that, is that Wakanda is stunning. Looks like something out of a science fiction movie and after having lived in Tony’s place for so long he has high standards for what that looks like.

*

Nebula lays a hand on Tony’s shoulder as he directs the nanos to his wound. Fucking _Strange_. He can’t believe that asshole gave up the fucking stone. He glares at Strange, “why would you do that?” he asks, hearing the own anger simmering deep in his voice, in his _body_. What he means is _I’m not worth that_. No one is- no one life is more than half the universe and Tony knew that, would have been fine if that’s how he died. But no, Strange gave up the fucking stone.

The silence stretches between them and Mantis’ antennae are glowing. He’s about to ask what she’s sensing when Strange speaks. “It had to be this way, Tony. We’re in the endgame now,” he says.

“Something’s happening,” Mantis says, interrupting. Her eyes go wide as she looks beside Tony and when he looks over Strange is still looking at him but he’s turning to dust. Its so ridiculous Tony almost laughs- the man tells him this is the endgame and then turns to dust? Its funny, sort of, in a fucked up way. But then Mantis starts to turn to dust, and Drax turns to Quill and frowns before he says his name. The last thing Drax will ever say.

Quill looks down at himself and lifts a fading hand. “Aw, crap,” he says as he, too, fades away. For a long moment they stand, unsure what to do, before Peter, the younger one, gasps.

“Mr. Stark, I don’t feel so good,” he says, arms wrapped around his stomach and Tony lurches forward, out of Nebula’s grasp.

“Hey kid, you’re fine,” he says, holding on to Peter. “You’re okay,” he says. He knows that’s a lie and Peter does too.

“I don’t want to die,” he says and Tony wants to yell at him that he should have stayed on the fucking planet yet but the worst thing, the _worst_ thing is that he knows that wouldn’t have helped. Thanos says its all random so the kid would have fucking died anyways.

“You’re okay,” Tony forces out even as Peter turns to dust, falling apart in his arms as he slumps into the dirt. “You’re okay,” he repeats, this time to no one in particular.

*

The fight doesn’t last long, minutes, Eddie swears, before shit starts going up in dust. Its not that he didn’t try to run, or that they didn’t try to kill Vision. They were just too late for that and Eddie had been trying to help Natasha and Okoye to keep the aliens at bay long enough to kill Vision. They all knew when it happened, the huge wave of red energy exploding from Shuri’s lab told them when it happened. Things go fast after that; Eddie can’t really remember the details because there were so many of them. Its like the aliens stopped and they thought maybe it was Wanda but she didn’t appear anywhere so they’d been unsure. They thought maybe the aliens were retreating but that didn’t seem to be it either- for a moment there was silence before it seemed like the whole Wakandan army surged forward, looking to ensure there was no more threat.

That’s when the real event happened. The first Eddie noticed was Okoye, who had been climbing out of the ditch he, Natasha, and Okoye had landed in when trying to deal with the aliens. One second she was solid, the next she was dust. He and Natasha had exchanged a look and climbed out of the ditch themselves only to watch a bunch of Wakandan soldiers fall to dust around them.

“V, what the hell is going on?” Eddie asks as everyone but him and Natasha, it seems, fades away. He looks over and spots the leader of that one group of Wakandans- Jabari, that’s it, but he looks just as confused and frightened as Eddie feels as he looks around at the carnage. “V?” Eddie asks, voice a little more panicked.

“Eddie,” Natasha says softly, lifting his arm. That’s when he notices he ash flying away, darker than the ask from the Wakandans and he lets out a harsh sob.

“What? No, V!” he calls, making a desperate grab for the ashes flying away, which does no good. Natasha holds him back and he tries to fight her off but without Venom he’s fucking useless. He lets himself be pulled back, knowing there’s little use in fighting Natasha’s strength anyway, and slumps into her body.

He’s surprised when she wraps her arms around him and she lets out a soft noise that sounds almost like crying. “We _failed_ ,” she says, almost like she’s in awe at such a possibility. Eddie wants to yell at her that they knew they were screwed, but another part of himself reminds him that they’re always fucking screwed but the Avengers have never lost.

So yes, they _failed_. All of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fact That's Not Seen In The End Of This Story: Rhodey swears revenge on Thanos because no one kills his best friend and gets away with it. This eventually leads him to finding Tony's stupid ass in that pod floating through space so instead of killing the tits off Thanos he rescues his Dumb White Boy and brings him home (wherein he vows revenge on The Purple Eggplant for traumatizing his Dumb Best Friend and also his Dumb Best Friend's Boyfriend But Not The Weird Slime That Live In Him For A Bit).

**Author's Note:**

> [My writing Tumblr](https://tenspencerriedplease.tumblr.com/)


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